This Is Vinyl Act
by Ace of Hearts
Summary: In another crazy publicity scheme, Vince McMahon has decided to ship some of his "lucky" wrestlers off to play a summer rock festival. Let the chaos begin! M for swearing
1. Prologue: Proposals And Rejections

A meeting was taking place at the WWE headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, as Vince McMahon listened to the various pitches his creative team threw at him.   
"How about we build Goldberg as the beer-chugging, finger-flipping, boss-hating working class kind of man who embarks on a long feud with Bischoff?"   
"Oh, yeah, _that'll_ really stop the Goldberg-Austin comparisons!"   
"Well, then, what if we do this angle where Stacy and Steiner break up, and Steiner gets Victoria as his valet, but as he's fighting Steven Richards and subsequently loses, Victoria turns on him and starts beating him down, causing all his steroid-pumped muscles to jiggle rather unattractively and prompting Stacy to run in from the crowds and miraculously beat up Victoria and chase her and Richards away, and she then turns to Steiner and they exchange emotional looks before embracing, and we have this lovely tear-jerking moment, and--"   
"And won't that be just a fabulous mid-card rehash of the Miss Elizabeth/Randy Savage storyline?"   
"All right, how about this: we forget about good storylines or feuds, and gun straight for the publicity jugular? A massive, over-hyped, gimmick-driven WWE extravaganza of some sort, one that will draw a lot of cheap media attention and sucker in thousands of new fans?" 

Vince straightened up at this new suggestion, tapping his chin thoughtfully and murmuring to himself, "Hmm, that just might work." The writer who'd made the suggestion smirked triumphantly at his boss's approval, but one little sentence from Jim Ross happily propelled the entire WWE creative team back to Square One.   
"Only problem is," good old J.R. pointed out, "what kind of extravaganza will generate so much good publicity?" At that, the writers and creative consultants all leaned back in their chairs to brainstorm, but Vince wasn't too worried by such a minor setback--after all, this was the same creative team that had come up with such groundbreaking ideas as the Katie Vick necrophilia angle, Dawn Marie humping Torrie's father to death, and giving Billy Gunn his 17897378909th failed push. They were sure to come up with at least _one_ innovative idea for a publicity-sucking WWE extravaganza. 

* * *

**Five Long Hours Later...**

"How about a WWE jingle-writing contest...?"   
"A soap opera starring our best-established Superstars, with Sable and a re-signed Hulk Hogan as the female and male leads. We can call it _The Old And The Useless."_   
"A partnership with Hershey's--I can see the slogan now: Bite Into Your Favorite Wrestler."   
"What do you think of a WWE amusement park--WrestleMania Land, The Crappiest Place On Earth!"   
"Hey, we can always go for another gay wedding, you know..." 

Vince, meanwhile, stood in a corner, vigorously tying the last knot on his noose and preparing to hang the first of his writers, when a sudden loud snore caught his attention, and he crossed the conference room to slam the door wide open. Chris Jericho's body promptly spilled forward, the first in a long line of WWE Superstars who'd been eavesdropping on the meeting from behind the door but had all fallen asleep as one lousy and/or boring idea was tossed out after another.   
"Ahem." Vince crossed his arms and impatiently tapped his foot until Jericho gave one last loud snore and finally woke up, gulping nervously when he found himself staring right into the boss's face.   
"Care to explain yourself?" Vince demanded pointedly, causing the blonde Canadian to nervously pull at his collar while mumbling, "Sure of course. We were, uh, we were all just, you know...Here, Christian'll be able to explain this much better than I ever can!" And he quickly grabbed his fellow Canadian and shoved him forward, still asleep. Christian gave a loud snort, right into Vince's face, causing him to step back in disgust and Jericho to mumble, "Or maybe he won't."   
"Is that Chris Jericho by the door?" Pat Patterson's voice floated over from somewhere in the conference room. "Tell him I said hi, Vinnie, while I go and change into something that's more flattering to give him a very special welcome!" Jericho gulped in dismay when he heard those words, before quickly ranting, "I've gotta go, but, uh, the little green-haired comic book geek behind me can tell you all about it, kay, see you around, Vince!" And he scampered away from the room like a blonde bat out of Hell, kicking up a makeshift little dust trail behind him. 

Vince now turned his attention to the luckless Shane Helms, who'd unfortunately just woken up from his superheroic nap and now stood ready for questioning.   
"We were, uh," he stammered so very intelligently, "we were...Tell him, Matt!"   
"We were...Shannon, why don't you tell him all about it?" Matt Hardy quickly unloaded all the responsibilities onto shoulders of his little MF'r.   
"We were eavesdropping on your executive meeting, sir, but all fell asleep because your ideas were boring beyond belief," the fair-haired cruiserweight answered truthfully, causing his fellow North Carolina natives to simultaneously smack their foreheads in exasperation.   
"Well, at least I can admire your honesty there, young man," Vince muttered darkly, causing Matt to gulp and pipe up in an effort to repair some of Shannon's honest damage, "And now we've woken up to present you with a great idea for the publicity extravaganza!"   
"We have?" Shane none too subtly elbowed him in the ribs, hissing in a lower voice, "You'd better make this good, Hardy."   
"Shut up, you SHIT-master," Matt hissed back from the corner of his mouth, plastering on a great big phony smile for Vince while fumbling around, "Of course we have, Your Majesty. It's, uh...You see, summer music festivals are all the rage these days, and they have such a great publicity-drawing history, like Woodstock and Ozzfest. At least that's what I think, Jeff tends to exaggerate when he gives his reports, especially if he's giving them right after Skittles Time."   
"So what you're saying, Hardy," Vince murmured thoughtfully, beginning to catch on, "is that the WWE's big publicity extravaganza should be our very own summer festival?"   
"That's right," Matt nodded enthusiastically, while Shannon piped in, "Hey, you can even call it a combination of Woodstock and Ozzfest, like Woodfest!"   
"Not a good idea, Shan," the Innovator of Mattitude (Version 1) quickly shushed his sidekick. 

"WWE Does _Beverly Hillbillies!"_ a writer called out his suggestion, and Vince cringed at the crappiness of the idea, before turning back to his wrestlers and saying brusquely, "All right, Hardy, we'll do your festival. Anything's got to be better than a jingle contest or another gay wedding!" Matt brightened up.   
"Great. Does that mean I get a raise?" he ventured hopefully.   
"No," came the equally bright response, as Vince looked at his watch and frowned. "Now all we need is to recruit the bands that will play in this summer festival alongside the WWE Superstars." 


	2. Chapter One: A Glimpse Of The Chaos To C...

The elite, rather unfortunate members of the WWE roster who'd been chosen to participate in the as-of-yet-still-unnamed summer rock festival were gathered in a conference room to go over plans for said festival.   
"All right, here's how we're going to determine which bands you'll be in," Stephanie was saying in her best no-nonsense, authoritative voice, as she paced around in the center of the circle of seated wrestlers while wearing her brand new five-hundred-dollar boots. "I've drawn a different-colored polka dot in each center of these folded-up slips of paper and put them all in a hat, which as you can see I'm shaking right now to make sure everything's fair. Each of you is going to draw a slip, and whomever else ends up with the same color as you have is going to be your bandmate. Any questions?" A hand immediately shot up. Stephanie paused, and when she'd identified the person attached to the hand, she placed her own on her hips and spoke deliberately, "What is it, Chris?"   
"Well, I think I speak for everyone in here," Jericho began snidely, "when I wonder whether that leather miniskirt you're wearing is genuine chipmunk, or merely the best imitation that unknown and half-blind designers can offer?"   
"It's the finest Italian leather, and it's real," Stephanie gritted out through clenched teeth. "Anybody else have any _relevant_ questions?" Jericho immediately raised his arm again, a growing smirk already on his face as he studied Stephanie's boots, but the brunette pointedly ignored him and went on, "Anybody have any questions at all...?" Jericho began waving both hands obnoxiously back and forth, nearly poking Kurt Angle's eyes out and causing Stephanie's eyebrows to begin twitching dangerously.   
"Yes, Lita?" she finally called out, grateful for some kind of distraction. The spunky redhead began to speak, when Stephanie suddenly screeched, "Jericho, put that finger down! That is _not_ the appropriate way to address the boss's daughter!" Lita leaned back in her seat, startled by the brunette's outburst, but before she could speak again, Stone Cold Steve Austin happened to pass by the room and catch Jericho's gesture, enthusiastically shouting out his pro-Y2J sentiment by hollering loudly, "Oh, hell yeah! That's the way to give it to 'em!" And as if to emphasize his words, he raised both hands and flipped the skylight the double bird.   
"Ahem," Lita cleared her throat pointedly as Austin disappeared down the hall, still flipping everything off. "May I please speak now?"   
"Of course," Stephanie replied, glaring at the broadly smirking Jericho.   
"Well, I was just going to suggest that we bring Jeff back for this summer festival," Lita began to say. "I mean, this _is_ publicity we're after, right? What better way to generate it than by staging some sort of one-time big reunion type tour? Besides, the main audience this Woodfest--" Shannon perked up and beamed, while Stephanie groaned and muttered something about forcing the creative team to come up with a better name--"is going after are the teenagers, and we all know that Jeff can attract more than his share of fangirls."   
"That's actually not such a bad idea," was Stephanie's reply, a thoughtful frown on her face as she mulled over Lita's idea while she passed around the hat. 

Kurt was the first one to reach for a slip, leaning into the hat and carefully digging around before finally pulling out a folded little bit of paper and uncreasing it to look at the color.   
"Hey, I got butter-yellow," he chirped brightly, while beside him Jericho snickered as he reached over for his own tag and jibed, "Pretty fitting that the Olympic crybaby got such a wimpy color, huh?" Kurt's lower lip stuck way out, as he whined, "I am _not_ a crybaby! Not anymore--now my gimmick is the typical squeaky clean and always super-good babyface!" He didn't need to defend himself beyond that point, as Jericho unfolded his own piece of paper and turned bright red when he saw a large, round, pastel pink polka dot staring back at him.   
"Way to go, white boy," John Cena smirked as Stephanie's hat was passed to him...before he soon found himself suffering the same fate and holding an equally pink polka dot in his hands. Sean O'Haire didn't fare much better, causing him to complain that pale pink didn't exactly go with his dark and enigmatic post-Devil's Advocate gimmick, while Rob Van Dam drew a butter-yellow polka dot and wound up joining Kurt Angle's band.   
"Oh, this is just marvelous," Jericho drawled sarcastically, as the hat continued to be passed around. "I'm stuck in a lousy band with Marky Mark and Fox Mulder on steroids!" O'Haire flashed him a nasty look for the steroids remark, but at that moment, the last wrestler, Matt Hardy, drew his paper, and the bands were finalized. 

Stephanie walked around with a clipboard, jotting down everybody's name and which band they'd been lumped into, before turning to her blackboard and beginning to draw four tables.   
"Okay, it looks like we have four bands here," she said, beginning to fill in each column with names. "The pink band--" Jericho winced--"is made up of Chris Jericho, John Cena, Sean O'Haire, Randy Orton, Christian--"a bunch of burly security guards dragged the Peeps' Champion back just as he was furtively trying to sneak out through the air conditioner shaft--"and Test." A collective sigh of relief came from the divas' side that they hadn't been paired up with Mr. Chauvinistic Pig, while Stephanie added, "Since both Chris Jericho and John Cena are in the pink band, its genre will be nü-metal, with the aforementioned two sharing co-frontman duties as the lead singer and lead rapper." A general wave of discontent rippled through the pinkers, as Stephanie demanded, "Anybody have any ideas for a band name?" At this, Jericho's lips began to curl up in a devilish smirk, before he leaned in to whisper something into Test's ear, who proceeded to call out, "Since it's basically a rip-off of Linkin Park, why don't we call it Blinkin Fart?" At this, the rest of the room exploded into laughter, while Stephanie just tapped the high heel of her left boot in a pissed off way while grumbling, "And to think I almost married you! What was I on?!" 

After the wrestlers had calmed down and Test had finally figured out that Jericho had ribbed him and shot his fellow Canadian an angry look, Stephanie went on to announce the rest of her victims--er, bands.   
"The yellow band," she revealed, "will consist of Kurt Angle, Rob Van Dam, Edge, and my Wonder Bra--what the hell?!" Jericho erupted into loud, obnoxious laughter just then, momentarily forgetting his lamentations over being stuck with "Marky Mark and Fox Mulder on steroids," while Stephanie shot him a dirty look and hissed, "Stop rewriting the script, Chris, or I'll have you pantsed and hung up on the French flag pole next time La Résistance come out for a match!" Jericho gulped and quieted down, as Stephanie, after clearing her throat, finished, "Speaking of La Résistance, what I'd meant to originally say was that they'll be the last two members of the yellow band." The French tag team smiled and hugged when they heard that, delighted that they'd been placed in a band that consisted of a simpleton (Kurt), a space cadet (Rob), and a pretty boy Canuck who'd been out on the injured list for God only knew how long (Edge).   
"They're too stupid to even be brainwashed by the media into hating us for being French," René spoke to Sylvan in French, who snickered in that same language, "Idiotic Americans."   
"Hey," Edge snapped, looking offended, "I'm not American, I'm Canadian." La Résistance looked surprised that he'd understood them, before Sylvan asked slowly, "How did you know what we were talking about?" at the same time that Rob butted in, "You're Canadian, Edge? That's so cool...but how did you meet the rest of U2 if they're from Ireland and you're from Canada?"   
"D'oah!" Edge smacked his forehead in frustration, and La Résistance leaned back in their folding chairs, wearing identical pleased smirks that Rob had just unwittingly proved their notion about Americans being idiotic.   
"Now, the yellow band will be a pseudo-Southern Californian pop-punk ensemble," Stephanie reminded everyone, "with Rob as the frontman, because he has the perfect stoned surfer type of singing voice." 

After she'd finished with the yellow band, Stephanie moved over to where Matt and Shane Helms were jostling with each other.   
"You two are the first two members of the psychedelic orange band," she told them. "Your bandmates will be Shannon Moore and the returning Jeff Hardy." Matt turned white when he heard that last name, croaking out something about Skittle highs and shaved sideburns, but Stephanie calmly ignored him and turned to the divas.   
"We have one last WWE band, and that will be a pop-and-dance girl group with each member having a different hair color and personality," she announced.   
"Hey, just like the Spice Girls," Kurt chimed in brightly, while Stephanie listed off the all-divas band members.   
"Stacy Keibler will be the bubbly blonde, Lita will be the fiery redhead, Gail Kim will be the cool brunette, and Victoria will be the scary darker brunette," the _Smackdown! _GM declared. 

As Steph finished writing the finalized bands on the blackboard, Gail spoke up mildly, "Stephanie? Which real bands will we play alongside in this WWE summer festival extravaganza?" Stephanie turned around and produced a handful of videotapes, smiling and replying, "I'm glad you asked that, Gail. We actually received several dozen audition tapes after Daddy placed those ads in _Rolling Stone_ and _SPIN,_ but so far Paul Heyman and Jerry Lawler, whom we've put as heads of talent-scouting, have narrowed it down to three bands that will audition in person next week. I can show you their tapes right now." As Stephanie popped the first tape into the VCR, Shane leaned in to whisper in Matt's ear, "Just how much can we trust _those_ two's decision?" Matt nodded wisely as a picture began to appear on the TV screen, only half-joking, "Yeah, for all we know, King probably just chose whichever three bands had the biggest hooters!" 

"This first band is a heavy metal act called Scarlet Rage--you've probably heard of them, their debut album sold two million copies, and they've recently come out with their sophomore effort," Stephanie nattered as the video began and the wrestlers settled back in their seats to watch. "Scarlet Rage will be the headliners and will close each show every night, since they're the best-known and, consequently, most successful rock act we'll have on the bill." The WWE'rs leaned back and began watching in interest, as the image on the screen slowly shifted into focus.   
"Hi, my name is Deron James Cutler." The lightly tanned young man who first began speaking was handsome in an all-American, surfer boy type of way, with dark blue eyes and longish, slightly tousled blonde hair. Stacy's eyes lit up as soon as he came into view, as she squealed, "Ooh, he's a hunk! Dibs on him when he comes over to audition." Gail shot her a brief look, singsonging, "Not if I get to him first!"   
"Anyway, you can call me Deron...but just not D.J., because it's not heavy metally, and I get enough flak as it is for not having a first name like Axl and a last name like Mustaine," Deron onscreen was saying. "As you ladies can see, I'm really gorgeous, and--" 

The camera was suddenly grabbed away from him, and the culprit wasted no time in shifting the attention to herself, announcing with a giggle, "And as all you _guys_ out there can see, I'm the token sex pot of Scarlet Rage!" She shoved the camera back into Deron's hands and took a few steps back to pose, an impish gleam in her brilliant blue eyes as she girlishly clasped her hands behind her back to thrust out her chest, her most sexy smile on her face as she showed off her cat-like figure and coyly tossed back her jet-black hair.   
"I'm Raven, Raven Emerald," she purred kittenishly, blowing kisses into the camera. "Jeff Hardy, if you're watching, this is for you!" Matt frowned at this, grumbling something about how it's always the crazy ones who get the girl, as on the TV screen, Deron huffily yanked the camera back to focus on him, clearing his throat and continuing pointedly, "As I was saying, before "sex pot" over here so rudely interrupted me, I'm the lead singer and the frontman of Scarlet Rage--"   
"Ooh, and I'm the bassist, but I also do back-up vocals," Raven butted in, sashaying her way back to the camera. 

Deron swung the camera around, catching sight of an athletically-built brunette with raven hair and icy dark brown eyes. She raised an eyebrow when she saw the camera focused on her, before raising a hand to show the object it held and snapping coldly, "Who *bleep*-ing decided to leave a *bleep*-ing *bleep*-load of beer cans in the bathroom? Hey, are you *bleep*-ing censoring me off, blondie, you mother*bleep*-ing *bleep*-er?! Well, since you *bleep*-ing think it'll be so much fun to clean up my *bleep*-ing language for me, I think I'll just keep *bleep*-ing cussing until you get your *bleep*-ing wholesome, all-*bleep*-ing-American head out of your *bleep*-ing *bleep*!"   
"Shannon, please, we're trying to shoot our audition tape here," Deron hissed, being answered with the middle finger from Shannon as he turned to face the camera and mumbled in a quick rush of words, "Miss Grinch over there is actually called Shannon Alexis Sumter. She's our drummer, but she's just a _little_ on the bitchy, antisocial side, if you catch my drift." Shannon only listened with eyebrows slanted sharply across her white forehead, and when she heard the last part of his sentence, she scowled and flipped him the middle finger again, before stalking off. 

Raven danced her way back to the front of the camera, rambling rapidly, "By the way, Shannon Moore, you're a total sweetheart! And Chris Jericho, you're not so bad-looking yourself, either--call me sometime, my number's 555-41--Hey!" Deron quickly repossessed his camera, focusing away from the brunette bombshell and onto the fourth member of Scarlet Rage.   
"That's Camryn Cruise, our lead guitarist," he announced, focusing on a tall, willowy young woman in her mid-twenties with long, midnight-black hair and cat-like green eyes. "Some of you may already know her from a magazine cover she once did--you know, the one with _Maxim?"_ About half the male population in the room smirked at that, Jericho wearing the widest one and muttering something about how before seeing the cover, he didn't know legs could do things like that. Whatever the mysterious "that" may be, most of the divas thought suspiciously, as they glared in the loudmouthed Canadian's direction. Camryn pushed past Deron as Raven took hold of the camera, looking suspiciously down at him as she demanded in a warning voice, "What cover would that be, you surfer dwarf?"   
"She's taller than him," Jericho observed with a smirk, before John Cena leaned in and pointed out, "Den she's probably taller den you, too, white boy," causing the King of Bling Bling to glare at the Professor of Thuganomics.   
"Camryn may wear her guitar too low, but she's the best there is," Deron enthusiastically assured his WWE audience, as Camryn took a casual swig from her bottle of Jack Daniel's before flinging it against a nearby wall and starting to walk away. "She can do tricks with her guitar like you wouldn't believe."   
"From that _Maxim_ cover, I'd say so," Randy snickered. 

"Camryn, we just had the whole room remodeled, and now you've ruined the new walls!" Raven started to complain as they waited for the last Rager to make her entrance and somewhere off-camera Camryn could be heard snapping coldly, "I'll ruin your face next if you keep opening that black hole you call a mouth!"   
"With what? The wreckage of your new convertible that you totaled last week?" Raven challenged, straightening up and drawing herself to her full height even as Camryn's six feet towered above her five-feet-eight.   
"Rusty! It's about time you finally showed up," Deron greeted, cheerfully unaware of the mounting hostilities between the two females next to him, as he zoomed from Camryn and Raven to a pale, medium-height brunette with soulful chocolate-colored eyes and long brown hair swept up in a high ponytail. Rusty arched an eyebrow when she noticed the camera shoved up her nose, questioningly warily, "I'm sorry, is this one of those not-so-hidden-camera TV shows? Am I being punk'd or something?"   
"No, no, it's our audition tape for that Woodfest thing," Deron happily reassured her, as offscreen, the entire WWE population turned on poor little Shannon and chastised in unison, "Moore, you moron!"   
"Thrills and chills," Rusty drawled semi-sarcastically, but the easygoing, relaxed manner in which she spoke her words more than canceled out any negative first impressions. "Listen, have fun with your little home movies, Deron, I'm out of here." And she began to shoulder on her jacket, digging through her purse as she crossed the room and headed for the door. Camryn and Raven settled their differences at that moment as well, and the former also began her departure, casually tossing back her long whip of jet-black hair as she walked.   
"Where are you going?" Deron and Raven chimed at the same time.   
"Black Diamond," Camryn snapped coldly, naming a well-known nightclub and bar, at the same time that Rusty sang out, "I have a date." Raven perked up, wondering with interest, "Oh, really? With whom?"   
"Who knows?" came the deliberately mysterious reply. "Maybe it's the UPS guy, maybe it's Val Kilmer. Either way, don't you even think about stealing him." And the door slammed shut, as both Camryn and Rusty left. 

Stephanie stopped the tape there, pushing the Eject button while readying another one.   
"You can see why we chose them for this elite summer festival," she said, as she inserted a second tape into the VCR and waited for it to rewind.   
"Because people have actually heard of their music?" O'Haire guessed logically, and was answered with shake of the head from Stephanie.   
"Because they seem like a real charismatic bunch?" Jericho spoke up sarcastically, while Stephanie glared at him and pushed Play.   
"No, you idiot," she hissed, as the second video started to play. "Because their blonde-haired frontman knows how to shake his hips and make the girls go wild for him!" 

The second audition tape was of a punk band, opening up with a shot of a trashed, rather grungy-looking pigsty of an apartment. Beer cans were littered everywhere, clothes stacked in piles on the floor, and a cat perched on a windowsill licked at the remaining drops from a near-empty bottle of month-old cream. A slim, nicely tanned young woman with black-tipped red hair quickly threw away a near-empty bottle of brandy as soon as she saw the camera trained on her, a rather sheepish grin on her face as she greeted, "Hey, there. I'm Maxine Winters, but feel free to call me Max--" At that moment, a young man passed by her, too quickly for the WWE wrestlers to get a good look at him but slow enough to call out in an Irish-accented voice, "Hey, Shorty." Max stopped and frowned, rolling her eyes and giving in, "Or that, but I really would prefer that you call me Max. Anyways, I'm the drummer for the punk band Urban Trash--but don't get us wrong, we're not really trashy people or anything."   
"No, you just like your decor to resemble trash," Stacy muttered under her breath with a roll of her eyes.   
"Anyways, I'll turn you over to my bandmates, but before I do that, let me just say one thing first," Max went on. "Just because we're mostly girls doesn't mean we can't kick your ass all the way to Kingdom Come! Yeah! Rock on!" 

The Irish youth who'd previously passed her now took control of the camera, focusing it so that the viewers could get a better look at his appearance and saying, "Sorry about that, Max has this thing 'bout provin' that girls can rock just as hard as any guy." Lita's eyes scanned critically over his shaggy, shoulder-length blonde hair and cold blue eyes, before she smirked and remarked to Gail and Victoria, "Who does that guy think he is, Kurt Cobain or something?" The three divas had a nice little laugh at that, while onscreen "Kurt Cobain" spoke rapidly in his Irish-accented brogue, "I'm the bassist for Urban Trash, which is actually a great band to play with--not to brag or anythin', but our energy level at shows is off the charts. Oh, and by the way, me name's Connor. Connor McManus."   
"Yo, did dat white boy just say his name was Mc_Anus?"_ John cracked, earning himself an exasperated glare from Stephanie and a round of approval from his fellow guys. 

Connor meanwhile had trained his camera on Urban Trash's frontwoman and guitarist, zooming in on a quietly pretty young woman with an olive complexion and dark chocolate hair. She smiled shyly at the camera, her moody dark brown eyes a stark contrast with the sweet, almost meek expression etched on her features.   
"Hi, I'm Melody," she spoke warmly, her words heightened by her unmistakable Australian accent. "I guess I would be the frontwoman for Urban Trash...I know I don't look very "punk" or anything, but--"   
"But we can all assure ye that Melly is a very talented singer and songwriter," Connor quickly filled in. "Right?" Melody merely nodded quietly in reply, as if to concede, _Whatever you say, I agree with you,_ when at that moment, Max happily chimed in, "She also thinks Kurt Angle's a major sweetie pie, so Kurt, if you're watching, give her a call, would ya?" Melody turned bright pink when she heard those words, quickly shaking her head and sputtering, "Not true, I don't...I mean, it's not that I dislike you or anything, Mr. Angle, I'm sure you're a nice person, but--"   
"Mr. Angle," Randy snickered. "You must feel ancient, huh?" Kurt happily ignored his words, already celebrating up on Cloud Nine to the tune of the Olympics music that somebody finally appreciated him and didn't think that he sucked. 

Stephanie stopped the tape there and ejected it, holding up one last video while announcing, "That's pretty much the whole sum of their audition tape; they sent in a demo of their music as well, but I don't think we'll have time to listen to it just yet, not if we want to get to the last act."   
"Who are they?" Victoria asked, having given up and stopped eyeing any escape routes once she realized that a security guard was planted firmly at each corner.   
"They're actually a pop duo called Verbena," Stephanie replied. "Think Britney Spears times two." And she pushed Play. 

Cute, upbeat bubblegum music filled the speakers, as the screen focused on two very pretty girls in their early twenties, both sporting perfectly brushed long hair and admirable tans, while offscreen, Matt and Shane exchanged looks, before muttering in unison, "This must be King's puppies band!"   
"Hi, we're Verbena," the one with the funkier hair color--thick white-blonde highlights with smaller red streaks splashed on her dark brown locks--bubbled happily, a Crest ad-worthy smile on her face. "My name's Amanda McAllister, but everybody knows me by my stage name, Amanda Marie."   
"And I'm Caitlin Johnson--or C.J., take your pick," the green-eyed blonde beside her added with a happy wave. "Like she said, we're Verbena, and we're a pop band, and God, do I sound dorky or what?"   
"But don't worry, _I_ at least will make a successful crossover into punk one day--you know, like that Avrell...Avra...Avery...well, whatever her name is, that skinny Canadian chick who overdoes it on the mascara and has totally boring hair," Amanda declared proudly. "After all, us Southern belles are renowned for our determination and success." Caitlin beside her rolled her eyes heavenward at the Southern belle comparison.   
"Please," she scoffed. "If you're a Southern belle, then I'm Princess Leia." Amanda shrugged, giving the camera her most innocent, wide-eyed look.   
"Suit yourself--although if I were you, Leia, I'd ditch those croissant-pigtails," she cooed. "And besides, what are you talking about, _of course_ I'm from the South--I've got the tan for it, don't I? I'm a total Southern belle, even my middle name is Scarlett." Caitlin burst out laughing at that, gasping out between hoots, "Your middle name isn't Scarlett, and you know it, Amanda _Lynn_ McAllister!" Amanda scowled, puttering around for a comeback or an excuse, before finally retorting lamely, "Yeah, well...you bleach, so hah!" Caitlin's mouth dropped open at the insult, her hands automatically shooting up to her sun-blonde hair as she hissed, "I do _not_ bleach! I'm naturally blonde, like Reese Witherspoon--wait, she _is_ a natural blonde, isn't she? Never mind, even if I _did_ bleach, at least it wouldn't be as obvious as _your_ dye jobs, Amanda _Lynn!"_ Amanda scowled.   
"Oh, bite me," she groused crankily, crossing her arms over her chest and staring sulkily at the camera. Caitlin gave a cheeky grin.   
"I'd do that...but then what would Justin Timberlake's new job be?" she teased, then was nearly pinned against the wall when Amanda tossed a giant white teddy bear straight at her face.   
"Eew!" the brunette whined, a completely grossed-out look on her face. "Like I'd do anything with J.T. now that he's gotten himself all uglified! As if!" Caitlin smirked.   
"Yeah, we all know you're saving yourself for Orlando Bloom..._after_ having sunk your claws into Shane West and Heath Ledger, that is!" she giggled, then had to duck frantically to avoid getting teddy-beared again.   
"Anyway, we're Verbena," Caitlin called out, frantically running around and searching for a shield as Amanda gathered up more ammunition. "Call us, okay, we're really good! Ow! That was my butt your Curious George just hit, Manda! Cut it out!" 

As Stephanie ejected the tape, she asked cheerfully, "Well, what do you think of your fellow Woodfesters--uh, I mean, whatever the rock festival's new name's going to be?" The unfortunate WWE wrestlers exchanged incredulous looks, before Matt spoke up tactfully, "Uh, they seem to be a really spirited bunch." John rolled his eyes at that, muttering, "Try crazy instead," while Randy muttered with poorly concealed sarcasm, "Yeah, I can already tell we're going to have a blast working with them!" 


	3. Chapter Two: Better Late Than Never

Stephanie sighed and yawned into her hands, wondering since when had the WWE creative team gotten this pathetically incompetent.   
"Just how hard can it possibly be to come up with one lousy name for a summer rock festival, anyway?" the youngest McMahon muttered darkly to herself, as seated across the table from her, one of the writers proposed, "Let's call it Farmstock--a combination of Farm Aid and Woodstock!"   
"Lollagagoogles," another one called out, tripping over the syllables and winding up stuttering out his suggestion.   
"OzzKozzB'Gozz," a third writer put forth, smiling pleasedly that he'd thought of such a smart name.   
"I have to pee," one of the junior assistants whined at that moment, earning himself a glare from Stephanie just as Paul Heyman started to suggest, "Why don't we forget about ripping off existing festivals, and aim for another, untapped group?" Stephanie rose slightly from her slouched position, asking without much enthusiasm, "What are you saying, Paul?"   
"What we need here is a title that'll be immediately associated with rock n' roll in people's minds, am I right?" the former owner of ECW pointed out, and at Stephanie's nod, he went on, "Then there you have it: let's rip off the name of one of the biggest acts in rock history!"   
"Rolling Stones?" Stephanie guessed.   
"Led Zeppelin," a writer in his early thirties suggested.   
"AC/DC," another one cheered.   
"Kiss," a third one put forward.   
"Milli Vanilli!" a petite bottled blonde squealed happily, playing around with her hair as she called out the particular duo's name.   
"Huh?" At this suggestion, all heads turned to gawk at her, causing the little blonde to whimper and duck under all the eyeballs fixed on her as she sniveled, "It was just a suggestion..." 

"Well, I was actually thinking more along the lines of Spinal Tap," Heyman chose that minute to quickly reinsert himself into the conversation, causing Stephanie to shoot straight up and screech, _"Spinal Tap?!_ What the hell kind of laughingstock do you want to convert the tour formerly known as Woodfest into?!" Heyman winced under the supersonic attack, his measly little ponytail being blown straight back from the force of Stephanie's rebel yell, as he hurriedly explained himself, "Well, Spinal Tap is an easier-to-rip-off name than the others. I mean, how are we going to mimic a name like Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin?"   
"We can substitute Hiss for Kiss," the writer who'd suggested Kiss offered so very helpfully. Stephanie rolled her eyes, muttering in a dry voice, "Yes, that will _really_ associate the festival with rock music and Kiss."   
"Red Elfin for Led Zeppelin," another writer called out eagerly.   
"Again, nothing to do with music--am I right, Steph?" Heyman spoke hurriedly. Stephanie sighed, conceding grudgingly, "As pathetic as this sounds, yes, you're right."   
"But with Spinal Tap, we can easily substitute in Vinyl Act--vinyl's immediately associated with records, while concertgoers can make the connection between Vinyl Act and Spinal Tap as soon as they hear the two names pronounced in the same sentence," Heyman pitched.   
"God, I can't believe the best name we've been able to come up with in all these days is Vinyl Act," Stephanie groaned to herself. 

At that moment, a bunch of EMT's led away one of the wrestlers-turned-rockers toward the nurse's office, causing Stephanie to look up suspiciously and demand, "What happened to him?" One of the EMT's paused long enough to disclose, "He got hit in the head with one of Test's flying drumsticks, and suffered a minor concussion. He'll be all right, though." They both watched then, as Kurt Angle blabbed away, "Flying like the bumblebee, stinging like the leech! No one can touch me! I'm Kurttiiiiiiiiieeeeee!!!"   
"Uh, after Nurse Helmsley bonks him on the head with a sledgehammer to cancel out his concussion, that is," the EMT quickly improvised, causing Stephanie to sigh and smack her forehead in frustration.   
"What kinds of music-ignorant simpletons do I have working this festival, anyway?" she sighed exhaustedly. At that moment, there was a loud thwacking sound, followed by a deep male voice yelping, "Owie! My other eye!" The EMT who'd informed Stephanie about Kurt's condition looked back with a tired groan, before speaking into his walkie-talkie, "Yeah, we're going to need some back-up here. That's right, Test just took out his other eye with his drumsticks!" 

Over at the other end of the amphitheater, which Vince McMahon had rented out for his wrestlers-turned-rock-stars to rehearse in until the real bands could arrive to kick off the tour, the newly reinstated Jeff Hardy was trying to teach his bandmates some alternative rock fashion.   
"Honestly, it's the latest rage these days," Mr. Skittle Xtreme was babbling enthusiastically, dipping his camel-hair brush into his can of rainbow-colored body paint as he spoke. "And besides, chicks love the icky gooey factor." Shane glared suspiciously at his fellow North Carolinian, forcing himself not to shudder in disgust as Jeff slathered on a generous helping of paint onto the superhero's arms and neck, before grumbling, "Holy gross-outs, Citizen Hardy. Are you _positive_ girls actually go for this type of thing?" Jeff nodded happily, his hair flying back and forth as though he were headbanging, while sitting beside him, the newly-painted Matt grumbled, "I feel like the poor man's Picasso right about now." 

Jeff cheerfully ignored his brother's comment, concentrating instead on turning Shane into the poor man's Frida to complement Matt's poor man's Picasso, being torn away from his important job only when a hysterical Shannon came careening toward the terrible threesome from the direction of the unisex restrooms, nearly in tears as he cried, "I'm breaking out! I think I'm allergic to your disgusting body paint, Hardy!" Jeff blinked in confusion, mumbling, "That can't be, it's all-organic paint--litchi, guayaba, jalapeño peppers, goat cheese, fungi mold..." Matt and Shane turned green when they heard the ingredients of the multi-colored slime they'd just been bathed in, while Shannon glared at the younger Hardy and groaned sarcastically, "Gee, how could I _possibly_ be allergic to that toxic waste you call paint?!" Jeff shrugged, trying to find a silver lining and muttering defensively, "Hey, at least you got to see some pretty hot stuff in the unisex, right?" Shannon rolled his eyes at Jeff's impish wink, whining, "Yeah, you won't believe what a turn-on it is to see Rikishi and Albert washing underneath their armpits in front of the toilet sinks!" 

"Morons!" Matt, who'd been pretty quiet until then, suddenly exploded when he could take no more of all the intelligent conversation around him. Tearing at his long, black hair, he proceeded to add, "I'm surrounded by morons!"   
"Thanks a lot, Citizen Hardy," Shane sniffed huffily, looking insulted that he'd been lumped into the same category as Skittle Jeff and everybody's favorite MF'r. At that moment, Rob happened to wander past them, overhearing Matt's outburst and calling out encouragingly, "Dude, take a chill pill. It'll all be better once the real bands get here...right?" 

* * *

Camryn frowned as she stuck her head into the long, white stretch limo and found out who would be her and the rest of Scarlet Rage's chauffeur for their trip to the airport.   
"Move over, Cutler, I'm driving," the tall, raven-haired lead guitarist spoke bluntly, annoyance evident in her cold emerald eyes when Deron remained happily planted in the driver's seat and blew her a raspberry to convey his response.   
"Aw, c'mon, Cruise, lighten up already," the blonde Miami native chirped brightly, absently playing around with the steering wheel as he spoke. "I don't drive _that_ badly, do I?"   
"Yeah, Camryn, let's just get this show on the road already--we have to get to Stamford by this evening," Raven chimed in from where she was, seated behind Deron and absently applying a new layer of magenta nail polish over her old burgundy coat. Camryn flashed her an irritated glare, then focused back on Deron as she reminded him frostily, "The last time you drove a car, it wound up compounded for three months, remember?"   
"And the last time _you_ drove a car, oh gorgeous guitar goddess, _it_ wound up crumpled in a ditch, remember?" Deron sang back, mimicking her tone of voice and narrowly avoiding getting punched in the nose for his tongue-in-cheek reply. 

Raven, for her part, had gotten bored of playing peacemaker, and was now blowing on her nails to dry them, just as Shannon and Rusty stalked over to the limo and pulled the doors open to get inside. Shannon got in wordlessly as usual, while the normally laid-back Rusty actually glared impatiently at where Camryn and Deron were bickering back and forth, before snapping in a huffy voice, "Will both of you just shut up and drive?" Deron's dark blue eyes widened in surprise at hearing the tone of Rusty's voice, as he leaned back and asked Raven, "Jeez, what crawled up her pants and bit her in the ass today?" Rusty's left eyebrow shot up angrily at this remark, and as Raven started to reply, "Oh, it's her pre-time of the month, if you get what I mean," the second guitarist of Scarlet Rage promptly wound up and bitch-slapped the taste right out of Deron's month.   
"You might want to put some ice on that," Camryn sneered, but Deron just stuck out his tongue at her and breezed, "It's only a little slap, I'm not incapacitated or anything, and can still drive. Now get in already, we're going to miss our flight if you keep going off on this idea that I'm a bad driver." Camryn scowled, before angrily crossing over to the passenger's side of the limo and jerking the door open so hard, she nearly yanked it right off its hinges. Seating herself beside Deron and crossing her long legs in front of her, she shot him one last glare before slamming the door shut. Deron grinned, before starting the engine and shifting the gear stick into Drive to peel off the curb at one-hundred-and-twenty miles per hour in a twenty-five-mph zone. Inside the limo, Shannon screeched out a startled string of curses at being so rudely tossed back in her seat, Camryn's scowl darkened even further, Deron whooped and pumped his fist joyously in the air, Rusty continued to bristle in her PMS-induced bad mood, and Raven cheerfully sang along to the Aerosmith disc still stuck in the car's CD player. Too caught up in their individual reactions, none of the Ragers seemed to notice that nobody was wearing a seatbelt. 

Deron had driven all of two hundred yards when the loud, shrill wail of police sirens broke into Shannon's cursing and Raven's screeched duet with Steven Tyler on "Dude Looks Like A Lady." Camryn leaned back in her seat, a satisfied little smirk on her face as though her point had just been proven, while Deron merely frowned, confused and wondering out loud with a sulky pout, "But I didn't _do_ anything wrong..."   
"Pull over! This is the L.A.P.D., I repeat, pull over!" a distorted, metallic-sounding voice came over the loudspeakers of the black-and-white tailing their limo, and Deron had no choice but to slam on the brakes, nearly sending Camryn flying right out the windshield while giving the rest of Scarlet Rage concussions from banging against the backs of the front seats. As the limo obediently screeched to a halt and the police cruiser behind them stopped as well, a furious Camryn turned to Deron and proceeded to strangle him with a rebel yell of, "Cutler, you motherfucking idiot!" The rest of the band seated in the back slowly began to recover their wits as well, before Rusty and Shannon teamed up to simultaneously smack Deron in the head for nearly giving them amnesia, while Raven anxiously whipped out her compact and checked to make sure she hadn't gotten any unattractive purple bruises from her conk to the head. 

A tall, rather handsome officer with thick dark brown hair and cold charcoal-gray eyes walked over to the limo, tapping on the tinted window of the driver's side with the end of his flashlight and waiting impatiently for somebody to answer. An automatic lock was popped and the power window soon rolled down, to reveal a tanned blonde youth in his early twenties seated behind the wheel, being throttled by the furious raven-haired young woman beside him as two additional brunettes abused the back of his head from behind.   
"Can I help you, dude--uh, I mean, officer?" the blonde man wheezed with some difficulty, his face beginning to turn a rather interesting shade of blue that nearly matched the color of his eyes. The policeman frowned, directing his words to the three women who were brutalizing their fair-haired companion as he requested curtly, "Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you--all three of you--to stop assaulting your friend here." The trio of brunettes ignored his words, while their hapless blonde bandmate assured the policeman, "Oh, don't worry about it--they'll stop once they get the sadism out of their systems." 

As if to prove his point, Camryn, Rusty, and Shannon finally let go at that moment, and Deron leaned back against his seat and rubbed tenderly at his bruised neck and head, pointing out with a wince, "See? Just like I said. I'm Deron, by the way--and you are...?"   
"Brest, Officer Brest," the policeman supplied, causing Deron to explode into a fit of high-pitched giggles, occasionally slapping at his exposed knees through their ripped faded blue jeans in his mirth. Officer Brest arched an eyebrow at this, before Camryn scowled and pushed Deron's head into the car horn so that she could speak directly with the policeman, snapping rudely, "Listen, just ticket us and piss off already, would you? We're going to be late at the rate you're flirting with Cutler over here!" The officer frowned at her words as the limo continued to let out a long, stretched-out beep, before Deron finally freed his head from Camryn's grasp and argued, "No, don't ticket us--we don't have any money on us right now!" Turning to the dark-haired woman beside him, he quickly urged, "Here, Cruise, flash the guy already so that he'll let us off the hook." Camryn's eyebrows slanted sharply across her forehead, before she scowled and swung with her fist. Deron was smart for once and ducked this time, and the guitarist wound up socking Officer Brest right in the stomach.   
"Ooh, nice upper cut there, Cruise," Deron whistled, as the officer's eyes popped out from the impact and he clutched at his abdomen. 

At that moment, Raven caught sight of the officer doubled over in pain and decided to join in on the festivities.   
"Camryn, how could you do that to him?" the blue-eyed bassist complained, scrambling over to get as close to the policeman as she could while asking sweetly, "Are you all right, Mr. Brest?" At that, Deron started snickering again, but Raven ignored him as she asked the officer instead, "Do you want me to kiss that boo-boo and make it go away?" The officer scowled and stepped back a couple of inches, snapping, "No, I don't want you to kiss it!" Whipping out his handy little notebook, he began scribbling out the first of several fines while muttering, "Let's see...erratic driving, speeding, failure to wear seatbelts, hitting an on-duty policeman, hitting _on_ an on-duty policeman..."   
"She had every right for hitting you," Rusty grouchily chipped in her two cents.   
"You dumb shit," Shannon muttered under her breath. The officer's eyebrows twitched, before he turned the page and continued writing out fines. Raven, meanwhile, was saying, "Are you sure you don't want to reconsider that?" while batting her eyelashes seductively at the cop, who ignored her and turned his attention to Rusty and Shannon instead.   
"Care to add anything else while you've got the chance?" he demanded dryly.   
"Yeah, you stink," Rusty muttered, training glassy brown eyes on him as Shannon added, "Jerk-off." The officer frowned suspiciously as he noticed Rusty's slightly slurred speech and glazed expression, before pointing to the coffee-haired guitar player and ordering, "All right, Miss, get out of the car." 

"Hey," Raven started to complain, as Rusty shrugged before lazily stepping out of the limo and batting away the officer's hands when he tried to search her, "how come she insults you and you grope her, yet here I am flirting away and you won't even notice me?" Everybody ignored her and focused instead on the officer and Rusty, and when the former finally turned up a little plastic bag containing a powdery white substance resembling flour, Raven finally lost her patience and exploded in a huff, "Oh, come on! What do I have to do here--flash you to get you to flirt back?!" The officer barely spared her a glance as he disclosed, "Ma'am, I'm gay, so there's no reason for you to try and flirt with me." As if to prove his point, he turned around and winked at Deron while he spoke, causing the blonde frontman to gulp and shrink back in the limo, trying to hide behind Camryn's taller but more slender frame while whimpering, "Camryn, I'm scared now..." Officer Brest, meanwhile, had turned his attention to Rusty and was saying, "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I'll have to arrest you for cocaine possession." Rusty scowled.   
"I just took a couple of hits to get rid of my writer's block," she grumbled. "What's the big deal there, it's not like I inhaled a whole pound up my nose." The policeman didn't budge, as he replied stiffly, "Tell that to the judge. My job is only to arrest you for transporting an illegal substance." 

At those words, Camryn, as well as Shannon, both got out of the limo, stalking over purposely toward the officer, with the six-feet-tall lead guitarist towering a good couple of inches over him in her high-heeled leather boots.   
"You're not throwing her in jail for this, are you?" Shannon demanded menacingly, cracking her knuckles as though preparing for a fistfight. The policeman stood his ground, unfazed by her hidden threat as he repeated, "The law is the law, ma'am."   
"I'm afraid you don't understand, Brest," Camryn growled in a deceptively quiet voice, gritting her teeth in annoyance when behind her, Deron again burst into giggles. "A Troublesome Triplet never goes to jail alone."   
"You mess with one Rager, you mess with us all, so you'd better take us to jail with her," Shannon ordered. The officer glanced up and examined their dead-serious expressions, before sighing and explaining, "As tempting as that offer may be, the answer would have to be no. I can't arrest you for no reason."   
"Oh?" Camryn and Shannon exchanged meaningful glances, before reaching into the limo and yanking out Deron. Positioning him between them like a battering ram and ignoring the Floridian's outraged squawks, the two women promptly hauled back and slammed him against the officer, knocking him backwards onto the concrete sidewalk where he was nearly run over by a group of teenagers on Rollerblades.   
"That good enough reason for you?" Camryn drawled coldly, as she and Shannon released their hold on Deron, who rolled onto the grass, clutching painfully at his head and whining that he was bruising like a tomato...albeit quite the handsome tomato, of course. 

* * *

Connor tapped his foot impatiently on the tiled airport floor, leaning against his luggage and glancing up at the nearest clock every five minutes as he wondered what was taking his bandmates so long to arrive. Due to some personal problems that had required his immediate attention, the blonde Irish bassist had had to leave two hours before the rest of the band were scheduled to go to the airport, so the members of Urban Trash had collectively agreed to rendezvous at the airport lobby half an hour before their flight to Connecticut was to take off. Now here he was, two hours and twenty minutes later, and still no signs of either Melody or Max. Connor grunted under his breath, absently raking a hand through his disheveled blonde hair as he continued to wait, and mentally debated whether he ought to go on the flight alone if his bandmates failed to show up before takeoff. 

Just as Connor had given up on Melody and Max ever arriving and reluctantly pulled up his luggage that the sound of hurried, rather erratic footsteps dashed madly toward him from across the lobby. Connor glanced up, relief evident in his dark blue eyes...relief which was soon replaced with dismay and mild indignation when he saw that the terror twins had come from the direction of the airport bar and were obviously, blatantly drunk out of their minds. Melody and Max staggered and stumbled toward him, leaning on each other for support, the latter wearing her dark red hair in a long black-tipped braid, the former carelessly clutching an opened bottle of vodka, which was sloshing its contents onto nearby people.   
"Ah feel puhr-tty, so very puhr-tty," Max was hollering in a hideous Southern drawl. "Ah feel puhr-tty, and hah-ppy, and gaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy!" Melody giggled and hiccupped, before twirling back her chocolate-colored hair and singing out, "I'm the Queen of the World!"   
"And I'm the Jester of the World!" Max countered, before collapsing into a hiccupping fit and thankfully shutting up for the moment. Connor clapped both hands against his cheeks, gritting his teeth as he went to work on the duo, stalking up to them and demanding acidly, "Have ye two been drinkin' again?" Melody tried to focus her eyes on him, giggling something about how his two heads looked funny before replying innocently, "Not since we each had a drink." 

Connor sighed in frustration as he looked at this new problem he would have to tackle, disbelieving that the two girls would allow themselves to get so wasted again when they'd both solemnly sworn sobriety and sanity just two weeks earlier.   
"Listen, Melly, our flight's leavin' in less than ten minutes, and--" he tried to explain, gently nudging both girls in the direction of the airport's check-in center.   
"I'm not Melly," Melody cried loudly, nearly taking out one of his eyes as she raised one fist into the air and declared, "I'm Mel Gibson, hear me roar! Lookie, here's my _Braveheart_ face!" And she scrunched up her features in her best attempt at a scowl.   
"And I'm the reincarnation of Sid Vicious, woo hoo!" Max declared triumphantly, pulling back a corner of her upper lip in her best Sid Vicious sneer. Connor rolled his eyes.   
"Tis drunk that both of ye are," he corrected them crossly, yanking on both girls' arms as though they were his disobedient children and dragging them toward their plane.   
"The hills are aliiiiiiiiiiiive...with the sound of muu-muus..." Max sang out obnoxiously, still giggling as she was pulled away. Melody hiccupped, before speaking up guiltily, "I have to pee-pee." Connor felt like tearing his hair out. 

**Ten Incredibly Long Minutes Later...**

Connor gratefully thanked the flight attendant who'd helped him lug in his comrades and settle them into two seats, before sitting down himself and buckling on his seatbelt, reaching forward for a magazine to peruse. Opening the glossy front page of an old issue of _Sports Illustrated,_ the punk bassist glanced to his left at a sleeping red-haired girl, who would have looked almost childishly peaceful and innocent had it not been for the loud snore that suddenly erupted from her throat and nearly sent Connor rocketing right through the airplane's roof. Having regained his composure, Connor settled down in his seat and concentrated on his magazine, immensely thankful that Max had fallen asleep as soon as she'd put one foot into the airplane. _Good thing too,_ he thought wryly to himself, _considerin' how if Shorty were awake right now, there'd be plenty of paper cups and peanut bags flyin' all around us!_ Shrugging as he began flipping idly through the magazine pages, Connor decided that this must be God's way of making things up to him after having the security guards staunchly refuse to let the band onto the plane on account of Max's long, sloppily-woven braid looking like a disguised noose. 

Connor was nearly done with his magazine, having stopped only to look at the pictures and read their captions, when he sat bolt upright, suddenly aware that the second half of the terrible twosome was nowhere in sight.   
"Damn it," he swore quietly under his breath, disregarding the flight attendant's instructions to stay seated and unbuckling his seatbelt as the plane began to taxi around the runway. "Please don't have Melody gettin' herself into any trouble at this moment!" Ignoring a nearby flight attendant's orders that he return to his seat, Connor began walking down the long, narrow passageway of the airplane, mentally running through all the places that Melody might have hidden herself in. 

Melody, for her part, had managed to sneak away unnoticed while Max was snoring and Connor was distracted by the swimsuit edition of _Sports Illustrated,_ and had somehow found herself wandering into the pilots' cabin. Turbulence caused the plane to suddenly jolt and shake before she could open the door and go inside, and Melody paused with her hand on the doorknob, stumbling around for something to steady herself with and beginning to look somewhat sick. Finally, after she felt she'd recovered, the twenty-seven-year-old Australian native twisted the doorknob and boldly stumbled inside, wearing a wide, silly grin on her face and waving at the two pilots as though she were some celebrity on a parade float.   
"Hi, I'm *hic* Melody," she chirped brightly, sheepishly apologizing for her hiccups when she'd finished introducing herself. One of the pilots gave her a suspicious glance, asking, "Miss, what are you doing here?" Another wave of turbulence rocked the plane before Melody could answer, and as the pilots exchanged wary looks while awaiting her reply, one of them noticed that their unexpected guest seemed to have turned a rather ill shade of yellow-green in the face. 

The airplane heading for Stamford, Connecticut continued ascending, flying steadily until another jolt wracked its entire metallic body. This time, however, turbulence wasn't the culprit, as from inside the plane, a horrified male voice cried out in a thunderous Irish brogue, "MELLY, HOW COULD YE THROW UP ON THE PILOTS?!!!" 

* * *

**That Evening...**

Stephanie gazed, stupefied, at the three female figures standing at the amphitheater doors and beaming brightly up at her.   
"I don't understand," she muttered to herself, rubbing her ice-blue eyes for the second time in two minutes and wondering whether she was seeing double after having had to spend a whole maddening week with a hopelessly incompetent creative team and even more hopelessly incompetent _and_ accident-prone WWE rock bands.   
"What's there to understand?" Amanda chirped loudly, as behind Stephanie, Christian dashed across the room, gleefully waving a wide banner and yodeling, "Welcome to the Peep Show!" Beside Amanda, Caitlin's eyebrows shot up and nearly off her forehead, as the pretty blonde asked curiously, "What's he talking about? What peep show?" Stephanie sighed, smacking her forehead with the heel of her hand and muttering, "They're trying to come up with a catchphrase for the Vinyl Act tour. You know, like how Guns N' Roses had their "Welcome to the jungle," and Christian's the self-proclaimed Peeps' Champion?" 

As Caitlin stood there and digested this new bit of information, Stephanie cleared her throat pointedly before jerking her thumb toward a second brunette standing a few feet behind Caitlin.   
"So who's the new girl?" the _Smackdown!_ general manager demanded, adding bluntly, "There were only two of you on the audition tape that you sent in a couple of weeks ago."   
"Well, yeah, but Verbena's not supposed to just have two members, duh," Caitlin explained, as though that solved every problem Stephanie could throw at her. "I mean, sure, Amanda and I are the founding members, but aside from us two, do you know just how many girls have been in Verbena at one time or another? Twelve total, over the course of two-and-a-half years. We just fired a bunch of back-up singers last month, and I guess we must have hired K-Girl before we shot our audition tape, which is why you didn't get to meet her then." Turning to the medium-height, slender brunette behind her, Caitlin pushed her forward and added, "Her name's actually Kyrie, by the way."   
"I can introduce myself, Cait," Kyrie spoke up with a smile, before extending her hand to Stephanie and shaking it. "Hi, I'm Kyrie Ann Jates, and I'm a big fan of your show. Honestly. You, ah, wouldn't happen to have some of your _Smackdown!_ Superstars here in this building, would you, Miss McMahon?"   
"As a matter of fact, I do," Stephanie answered. "And it's Stephanie, not Miss McMahon. We're all equal here, after all. Come with me, and I'll introduce you to the WWE bands who'll be on the Vinyl Act tour with you." 

The trio was about to head off into the stage area, when Kyrie suddenly noticed something and spoke up tentatively, "Hey, weren't there four of us just a while ago?" Stephanie and Caitlin stopped as well, and the latter muttered thoughtfully to herself, "Hmm, I could have sworn that Amanda was with us up until that weirdo peep show guy streaked past." Stephanie swept the half-full amphitheater in one expert glance, and had no trouble finding the missing third member of Verbena, as she fixed her eyes on the water cooler and spoke up dryly, "Looks like your friend's doing perfectly fine without any introductions from me." Caitlin and Kyrie glanced up in confusion, wondering what Stephanie was hinting at, before also looking in the direction that the _Smackdown!_ GM had her eyes trained on and doing identical double takes. 

Amanda sat pertly on a tall crate that had previously contained Test's drum set, swinging her legs back and forth and smiling brightly every other minute to consciously deepen her dimples. Gathered around her were at least half a dozen of Steph's male wrestlers, hanging on to every word Amanda spoke. To her left, Christian gently held her hand because supposedly her little finger had gotten strained from too many dance rehearsals, while in front of her, Randy was in the process of taking off his shirt upon Amanda's request that little old her might get a glimpse at his abs of steel. To Amanda's right, Sylvan and René were none-too-subtly jostling with each other for the seat closest to the Verbena vixen, and a few feet away, Jeff was so entranced by the way her bristly black lashes fluttered coyly in his direction that he forgot to watch what he was doing and ended up painting a long, diagonal glow-in-the-dark blue band right across a loudly protesting Shannon's butt.   
"How very nice of you to hold my hand, Mr. Peep--despite being Canadian, you demonstrate true Southern chivalry," Amanda was flirting loudly from her seat, adding, "And I ought to know about Southern chivalry, after all; don't you go believing Caitlin when she tells you I'm actually a Yankee--ugh, as if! In truth, my father's ancestors were all Georgian plantation owners during the days of the ant--anta--anteball--"   
"Antebellum?" Jeff guessed, and the rest of Amanda's little entourage looked shocked that Mr. Skittles actually knew such a big word existed, let alone was able to pronounce it. Jeff glanced around at all the eyeballs fastened on him, muttering in clear annoyance, "What? I'm from the South also, remember? Give me some time and I'll learn to play "Dixie" on my guitar for you all!"   
"Anyway!" Amanda cleared her throat loudly, unable to endure a conversation that wasn't focused entirely on her. "As I was saying, for a Southern belle like me, it's no trouble at all to identify signs of Southern chivalry in all of you, and--Wow! Randy, you must work out a lot, those abs are even better than Janet Jackson's!" Randy uncertainly lowered his shirt, frowning and mumbling, "Gee, thanks...I think." Turning to Sylvan beside him, the third-generation Superstar whispered loudly, "Was that a compliment or an insult?"   
"Insult," Sylvan whispered back, at the same time that Christian piped up loudly, "Ooh, that was definitely a compliment! I mean, have either of you peeps _seen_ Janet's abs?" 

Everyone turned to stare at him, but as Christian started to blush bright pink and Amanda began to sulk that once again, the limelight had been stolen from her, Stephanie walked up to the group, with the rest of Verbena at her heels.   
"Well, I see we've all gotten acquainted here," the youngest McMahon drawled sarcastically, while somewhere behind her, Caitlin tried to stop Kyrie from tripping up to a glow-in-the-dark Shannon and make a fool out of herself in front of him. "Now, if only the other two bands will just arrive already--" 

Just as Stephanie started to get herself all worked up again, Edge came running over to her, speaking urgently, "Stephanie, I've just gotten off the phone with the representatives of the two final acts on this tour." Stephanie turned around, replying, "About time! Go on."   
"Well, Urban Trash will be here shortly," the tall Canadian began, looking somewhat apprehensive while running a hand through his long blonde hair. "Their flight was delayed due to a little "incident" onboard, but their bassist--that Anus guy--has told me to assure you that the band will definitely be here no later than midnight." Stephanie sighed, deciding that she didn't even want to know what that little "incident" involving Urban Trash might be. _Just as long as they get here, I don't care if they set fire to their hair and had to be airlifted to the nearest county hospital, _she thought darkly to herself. That still left one last band unaccounted for, and Vinyl Act's supposed headliners at that.   
"What about Scarlet Rage?" Stephanie asked, as an uncomfortable expression began creeping up Edge's features.   
"Yeah, um, about them." He cleared his throat. "Scarlet Rage--all five of them--are currently sitting in a Los Angeles jail right now. Apparently, they've been charged with a massive list of legal offenses, including but not limited to speeding, erratic driving, failure to wear seatbelts while in a moving vehicle, transporting an illegal substance, defamation, sexual harassment, and assaulting a police officer. But I'm sure they've already posted bail as we speak, Steph." 


	4. Chapter Three: One Big Dysfunctional Fam...

Randy raised one perfectly toned arm to check his watch, frowning impatiently when he read the time before yawning into the palm of his hand. Standing a few inches beside him, Jeff continued to chew his blueberry-flavored bubblegum, his head moving back and forth as he hummed the opening notes to Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" under his breath, partly to pass the time, mostly to irritate Randy. Between the two of them they each lugged a half-heartedly constructed cardboard sign, scrawled over with the worst chicken-scratch handwriting in the world and meant to greet the rock band they'd been bullied into picking up at the airport. Jeff's sign boldly proclaimed "SARS Race" in chunky red block letters, while Randy's simply read "Scarlett O'Hara," with "Scarlett" misspelled so that it was missing one "t" and the ink smeared so badly on "O'Hara" that it was barely legible. Jeff, being in title the chivalrous Southern gentleman that Amanda had bestowed upon him, would have pointed out Randy's mistake, but that action pretty much spelled instant death for the youngest Hardy's masculinity, seeing how once Randy found out Jeff had actually watched _Gone With The Wind,_ let alone that he bawled his eyes out every time he saw the ending, the Evolution member would be more than happy to blab his mouth off to the entire WWE locker room. 

The odd couple continued loitering around the airport lobby, Jeff having moved from Nirvana to Alice in Chains, Randy debating whether it was worth getting thrown in jail for strangling everybody's least favorite annoying little brother, when out of the corner of his eyes, he caught sight of a petite bleached blonde standing several yards away. _Not too shabby,_ he observed critically to himself, as the blonde girl stood up on tiptoes to whisper something into a security guard's ear. _Kind of chunky, and could use a better bleach job that'll cover up all those dark roots, but I guess I could date her...once I'm through with all the seven hundred other women lined up for the next three months, anyway!_ Randy snickered at that thought, silently congratulating himself on what a ladies' killer he was, when at that moment, the security guard began stalking purposefully toward them, making a beeline straight for the clueless Jeff just as the most Xtreme Skittle must have reached a particularly rocking riff in his song and began headbanging away. The tips of his turquoise-and-magenta-dyed hair flew rapidly back and forth, smacking against the already surly-looking guard's mouth and leaving a rather prominent colored streak in their wake. Randy none-too-softly poked his partner in crime in the ribs, causing the smaller youth to grunt and painfully rub at his sore spot, before whipping over to practically headbutt the airport security guard. 

"Uh, can I help you, Mr..." Jeff's eyes traveled to the guard's uniform, struggling to read his name tag before he ventured uncertainly, "Can I help you, Mr. Sexy?" Randy's eyes goggled out, as the security guard harrumphed and dryly corrected Jeff, "That's Sexton." Jeff gave a sheepish grin in reply, before mumbling, "Heh, sorry. I must have left my contacts at home today, Officer, um, Anglo-Saxon, was it?"   
"Sexton," Randy hissed, before deciding that if he allowed Jeff to deal with the guard any longer, they'd both wind up in the county jail before the day was over, and reluctantly shifting the responsibility onto his own shoulders. "Have we done anything offensive or illegal, sir?"   
"Not you, kid," the guard replied, then pointed with his nightstick at Jeff's homemade sign and growling, "But you, son--you've got a lot of nerve coming over to this airport and waving around a pro-SARS sign fifteen minutes before the afternoon flight from Hong Kong is scheduled to land."   
"Oh, that," Jeff airily waved his hands back and forth, rambling in a rapid string of words before Randy could intervene and do some damage control, "Don't worry, Officer Sexist, me and my friend here were forced to pick up this rock band, see, and they happen to be called that name." The guard frowned suspiciously, his eyes alternating back and forth between Jeff's sign and Randy's, before he pointed out bluntly, "Then how come yours says "SARS Race," while the taller musclehead's reads "Scarlet OBlah?"   
"Huh?" Jeff blinked back stupidly at the guard, while Randy hastened to reassure him while putting on his most angelic face, "We must have heard the band's name wrong, then. But honestly, Mr. Sexton--" 

Before he could spout any more excuses, a sudden and shrill feminine cry of, "There he is! Oh, he's so incredibly, unbelievably yummy!" broke into Randy's words, causing him, Jeff, and the security guard to all turn around. Spotting a growing group of excited young women with adoring looks splashed over their faces, Randy began to grin and loosen the top three buttons of his light blue dress shirt, drawling to himself, "Ah, I see--my devoted worshippers have arrived." He'd barely gotten those words out of his mouth before the group of fangirls promptly let out a collective high-pitched squeal and proceeded to stampede toward Randy and Jeff...and then ran them both over, along with the hapless Sexton, in their mad dash to get at some other "incredibly, unbelievably yummy" stud behind them. 

"Gahck!" Randy coughed, spluttering in the dust trail left behind by the fangirls as he painfully stumbled to his feet. Beside him, Jeff also pulled himself up, although with some effort, and took a few minutes to check his appearance in a nearby tinted window to make sure he hadn't gotten any bumps or bruises.   
"Oh, no! My hair! Those dumb groupies just gave me split ends," the horrified Hardy wailed, his fingers combing through his precious dyed locks while beside him, Randy rolled his eyes heavenward and mumbled something about Jeff always having had split ends.   
"Come on, let's go see what kind of mindless pretty boy gigolo suckered in all those lousy chicks," Randy grumbled, beginning to stalk over to where a growing cluster of females was gathering. Jeff glanced down at the squashed and flattened security guard, before speaking up uncertainly, "Uh, shouldn't we peel that Saxophone guy off the floor as well?" Randy gave him an incredulous look, scoffing, "What, and have him fine us for your SARS blunder? Forget it, Hardy!" With one final glance at the luckless Officer Sexton, Jeff shrugged before hastening to catch up to Randy. 

Standing in the middle of the circle of adoring girls and taking in all their shrieking and groping with easygoing grace, Deron was smiling goofily in the direction of every flashbulb that went off, showing off his pearly whites and tossing back his golden mane of hair while laughing loudly at some joke that only he apparently had heard.   
"Well, you girls _do_ know that Rage is going out on tour this summer," the Floridian babbled on, grinning and making the "Rock On" sign with one hand while using his other to run casually through his longish dark blonde hair. "Hell, we're going to be hitting all the major rock markets--L.A., New York, Chicago, Philly--but don't worry, I'll make sure that the tour stops by some of the smaller towns, just for all you nice corn-fed country babes out there!" Beside him, Raven rolled her eyes heavenward, before suddenly remembering that her own beloved Josh Hartnett could also be lumped into the "corn-fed country babe" category and quickly wiping the smirk off her face. 

"Hey, aren't you guys that SARS band?" a distinctly male voice spoke up from somewhere within the wall of young women, and Raven glanced around, intent on huffily correcting him with a snap of, "That's Scarlet Rage, you idi...you...you..." Her lips parted slightly as a sudden dreamy look came over her eyes, and as the guy who'd completely butchered her band's name struggled to catch a glimpse of her face from amidst all the other women's, Raven quickly pushed her way to the forefront and flashed him her brightest smile.   
"Hi, I'm Raven!" she chirped happily, brilliant blue eyes dancing with delight when he returned her smile with a mile-wide one of his own.   
"Hi, I'm Jeff," the colorful young daredevil bubbled goofily, equally entranced by the heavy metal bassist as she was by him.   
"I'm Raven," Raven repeated, for lack of anything better to say.   
"I'm Jeff."   
"I'm Raven."   
"I'm Raven."   
"Oh, well then, I guess I'll be Jeff."   
"All right. And I'll be Raven." 

Randy, standing beside his fellow wrestler, observed all the intelligent conversation flying around with a scornfully bored look on his features, as he rolled his eyes before turning to the nearest Rager and greeting her with, "So then, I guess you guys are that one band..." Realizing that the chances of a heavy metal band calling itself Scarlett O'Hara were slim to none, he took to scrutinizing the band T-shirt she happened to be wearing, assuming she was wearing one of her own band's shirts and trying to decipher the logo. The PMS-ing Rusty, meanwhile, glared at the handsome but rather arrogant young man who suddenly seemed fixated on her top, slapping his chin upwards so that he was looking at her face rather than her chest and growling, "They're called boobs, kid, and if you want to remain a man, I'd suggest you back the hell off from them!" Randy frowned, too used to having attractive young women grovel at his feet to know how to handle one spilling over with threats to castrate him, and opted to shoot back, "Jeez, what's your problem, lady--is it that time of the month or what?" Rusty, her dark eyes snapping fire, gritted out through clenched teeth, "In point of fact, _yes!"_ Randy blinked, startled by her response, before taking a few discreet steps back from the grumpy guitarist and inadvertently bumping so hard into another brunette that he nearly catapulted her into the wall. 

Shannon whipped around furiously when she recovered, spotting the culprit--namely, Randy--and punching him so hard for his mistake that her own hand stung with the blow, while she thundered angrily, "What the fuck do you think you're doing, you musclebound jack-off?!"   
"Ow," poor Randy, bewildered that two attractive young women in a row had attacked him rather than slipping him their hotel room keys, clutched painfully at the purple welt that was beginning to emerge on his tanned cheek, and wound up stumbling into the final member of Scarlet Rage. Anticipating some form of violent response from the tall, raven-haired young woman, the so very cocky and gallant Evolution member cowered against a wall and whined, "Don't hit me! I'm too gorgeous to have scars!" 

Camryn, preoccupied with fumbling around in her long leather coat for her near-empty pack of Marlboro's, turned around when she heard the terrified little squeak spoken in a surprisingly masculine voice, and murmured a greeting of, "Hey, just because I wear leather and Spandex doesn't make me a dominatrix. Go hit yourself, kid." Randy stopped shielding his face by crossing both arms above it, daring a peek at the willowy green-eyed vixen he'd bumped into and relaxing when he saw that her right arm wasn't raised in preparation to attack him.   
"Hey, I know you," the third-generation Superstar perked up, his eyes lighting with recognition as he said excitedly, "You're that guitar chick...from the _Maxim_ cover...with the legs and everything..." Turning around to slap Jeff's elbow and beckon him in Camryn's direction, Randy fired off, "Hey, Hardy, look--it's that _Maxim_ guitar babe...!" Jeff made no attempt at a response, his eyes still glued on Raven's cornflower-blue ones as he babbled goofily, "And I'm Jeff-or-Raven-or-both." 

Randy sighed, using the insides of his knuckles to slap at his temples in dismay as he glanced around at his surroundings. Somewhere in the center of women, Deron was happily laughing away as he signed autographs, posed for pictures, and allowed himself to be groped and pinched all over by his adoring fans. Camryn occupied herself by turning to face a wall and sticking a cigarette into the corners of her lips, struggling to light it with a lighter that absolutely refused to work and letting curses fall freely from her burgundy lips with each failed attempt. Rusty, off in a corner by herself, was glowering at everyone and everything in sight in all her PMS glory, while to the guitarist's right, Raven and Jeff were _still_ dopily introducing themselves to each other over and over again. Finally, somewhere at the edge of the crowds, Shannon seemed to have somehow inveigled her way into a furious argument with a security guard who was positive that the Scarlet Rage drummer looked just like an _America's Most Wanted _husband-slayer dubbed the Little Lolita.   
"Why me?" Randy groaned to himself, cursing his luck at having been stuck with the highly unwanted task of hauling this motley crew back to the amphitheater. "Why do I have to be the only sane one in this group?" 

* * *

"All right, let's try this again," Stephanie dictated through her loudspeaker. Positioned on a makeshift stage a few yards away, John and Jericho exchanged glares, while sitting behind them on a too small drum stool, Test groped around blindly, both eyes snugly covered with black patches after his little I'm-going-to-be-the-next-Tommy-Lee-just-watch-me incident. Randy was still nowhere in sight, having been harassed by Stephanie into picking up Scarlet Rage at the airport in case Jeff got lost and drove to Mexico instead, but Christian and O'Haire were unfortunately present, and doing as pathetic a job as ever on bass and guitar duties. 

"Come on, let's just rehearse," Test grunted, causing Jericho to frown before flipping back his long golden locks and sniffing haughtily, "All right, but this time, _I'm_ starting the song off." Test whipped around in the opposite direction when he heard his fellow Canadian's voice, calling out uncertainly, "Uncle Barbara? Is that you? I can't see too well with these pirate patches over my eyes..." Christian leaned in to whisper in John's ear, "Did he just say he has an _uncle_ called _Barbara?"_ John shrugged, before hissing back, "Dat would make him one wacked out Testicle." O'Haire leaned over to succinctly chip in his two cents.   
"Word," the ex-Devil's Advocate agreed, causing both John and Christian to gawk boggle-eyed at him in shock. In response, O'Haire merely raised one eyebrow, before demanding, "And just what is so strange about that? Do I really look _that_ white?"   
"Ahem-hem-hem!" Jericho pointedly cleared his throat. "Can we please begin rehearsing now, before Scarlet Rage gets here and blows our metal band right to Kingdom Come for being so shitty?" John made some hip hop gesture that definitely looked obscene to Jericho, Christian and O'Haire settled for merely rolling their eyes and shouldering on their respective instruments, and the fearsome foursome settled into rehearsing, sans one of their hapless guitarists. 

"Backstroke lover always hidin' 'neath the covers/'Til I talked to your daddy he say," Jericho began, in a surprisingly tolerable voice as he led the WWE band known as Twisted Thugonomics into its cover of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way"...at least, until John pushed him away from center stage and rapped out the next line.   
"He said you ain't seen nothin' 'til you're down on a muffin/Then you're sure to be a changin' your way," the Bostonian fired off, barely managing to get the last word out before Jericho happily swooped back to hog up the spotlight all for himself.   
"I met a cheerleader was a real young bleeder/Oh the times I could reminisce--hey!" Jericho hollered, when John viciously shoved him back, with such force that the hapless blonde Canadian went hurtling down the stage and right into a startled O'Haire, bouncing off his muscular chest and torso before finally landing on his butt a few feet beside the highly amused John.   
"Cause the best things of lovin' with her sister and her cousin/Only started with a little kiss--oof!" John never got to finish rapping, when Jericho tackled him back with a vengeance, knocking him away from the microphone stand and sending him flying toward Christian, bowling over the unfortunate Intercontinental Champion in the process. 

Standing a good distance away from the Fab Four and clustered together with two of the WWE bands, Sunflower and Enigma, the three members of Urban Trash continued to lounge around, having seen far worse during their various eclectic gigs, which had ranged from punk clubs to keg parties, to really be bothered by any impending catastrophes about to occur around them. Melody was sitting quietly in a corner by herself, caught up in the unrequited love of a gallant but unfortunately ugly Frenchman for his delicate lady, occasional tears of enjoyment and emotion flowing down her cheeks at the play's tragic final act. 

"Hi there," a high-spirited, friendly male voice chirped from above her, and Melody started up, closing her book as she hurriedly and embarrassedly wiped away any remaining tears with one deft flick of her fingers, before looking up and into a pair of the bluest eyes she'd ever seen. The friendly-looking, happy-go-lucky man who'd startled her out of her silent enjoyment grinned brightly as a greeting, earning himself a shy smile from Melody as he added, "Are you reading? You must be smart, which book is that? Oh, and by the way, I'm Kurt Angle." Melody smiled again, with a bit less timidity this time, as she replied quietly, "I know, congratulations on winning the championship title...and yes I _am_ reading, as a matter of fact."   
"That's great," Kurt grinned encouragingly, before repeating "Which book is that?"   
"It's a play, actually," Melody corrected him. _"Cyrano de Bergerac."_ She pronounced the play's name in its original French language, causing Sylvan and René a few yards away to perk up and smile at her, much to Amanda's sullen consternation. Melody, meanwhile, stared up at Kurt's dumbfounded expression when he tried to repeat what she'd just said, before the pretty Australian native patiently repeated the play's name, only in its Americanized title this time.   
"Oh, _that_ Cyrano," Kurt's face lit up, and a smile of recognition flashed across his wide blue eyes. "Cool, I saw the _Wishbone_ version of that play once!"   
"Did you now?" Melody replied graciously, then brought a hand up to her forehead and gasped, "Oh, no, I can't believe I've forgotten to introduce myself all this time! I'm sorry if this seems rude to you."   
"Not at all," Kurt replied in an easygoing tone of voice. "At least you didn't sneak in some flippant remark about me being an Olympic bald eagle or anything, like most people would have done!" Melody laughed, before tucking a strand of chocolate-brown hair behind her ear and introducing herself with, "I'm Melody, Melody Turner. My band and I are delighted to be playing alongside you on this Vinyl Act tour" 

Gathered around a small round table a few yards away, a group that included three-fourths of the North Carolina crew as well as Urban Trash drummer Max and Verbena singer Kyrie were absorbed in a game of strip poker and completely disregarding Stephanie's orders that they get some rehearsing in before Scarlet Rage arrived and the tour could be kicked off.   
"All right, what've you got?" Matt demanded, the smug smirk on his face indicating that he obviously had a great hand. Which was probably a good thing for the Innovator of Mattitude, seeing how he was already sans both his jacket and his shoes, and another loss would strip him of his shirt as well and leave him at Max's mercy. Shannon Moore resolutely threw down his hands, grumbling, "I have the worst of luck at these games, it just isn't fair."   
"Honey, come on," Max cooed teasingly, her eyes carefully studying her own cards. "No use stalling."   
"Yeah, take those pants off, baby, woo!" Kyrie beside her cheered with a laugh, pretending to wave around a handful of dollar bills. Shannon shot both women a sour look, before heaving a morose sigh and resolutely placing down his eclectic hand in the middle of the table: a two of clubs, a four of spades, a ten of hearts, an ace of diamonds, and a jack of clubs.   
"Aw, Shan, you know what that means," Kyrie giggled, exaggeratedly batting her eyelashes in his direction. Shannon groaned, before reluctantly reaching down to his belt and beginning to unzip his jeans. Both Matt and Shane winced and averted their eyes, while Max and Kyrie snickered and exchanged low fives. 

While Max and Kyrie were having their fun over Shannon's striptease, Stacy and Gail were observing the last member of Urban Trash fiddling with his bass a distance away from them, before the leggy blonde turned to poke her friend in the ribs and remarked scornfully, "Yuck, have you ever seen a guy _that_ scruffy-looking?" As the Korean diva shook her head and wrinkled her nose in distaste, Lita caught the two's whispered exchange and decided to join in on the fun, wisecracking, "Yeah, talk about a fashion disaster who's in serious need of some help from _Queer Eye For The Straight Guy's_ Fab Five!" The three divas had a nice little laugh over that, before Gail paused and muttered, "Seriously, though, somebody ought to tell him that the grungy flannel look went out in the early nineties, or he'll never get a date with any self-respecting girl!" Stacy rolled her eyes, guessing laughingly, "Oh, please! Mr. Anus Cobain over there? Some guy _that_ hideously dressed couldn't possibly be interested in having a love life! I'll bet he probably doesn't even notice any women unless she's Courtney Love! Ew!" Lita grinned, apparently very much up to the challenge, as she singsonged, "In that case, Keibler, watch and learn!" And the redheaded diva sauntered confidently off, Gail and Stacy eagerly watching her moves to see what she was up to. 

Lita casually sashayed up to Connor, asking in a saccharine little schoolgirl voice, "Hi, there, big guy. I'm Lita." Connor glanced up from his bass guitar strings, startled at his unexpected visitor, before a strange expression overcame his features and he replied in a voice so low that it was almost a whisper, "Hi. I'm, er, Connor."   
"I know," Lita smiled brightly. "You're that grungy McAnus guy John and the other boys keep making fun of, aren't you?" But she giggled flirtatiously and batted her eyelashes in his direction as she said those words, causing a moment of speechlessness for the punk bassist, before he coughed and cleared his throat in an effort to re-find his voice.   
"Erm, right," he finally mumbled with a mouth that suddenly felt as dry as cotton. "Tis actually _McManus, t_hough."   
"That's absolutely fascinating." And then Lita played her trump card, girlishly clasping her hands behind her back so that her ample chest was deliberately thrust out and toward his face, causing his eyes to widen and a faint blush to wash up his neck and face.   
"So...whatcha doing?" Lita purred, putting on a deliberate air of innocent curiosity.   
"Uh, tuning me bass strings," Connor mumbled, scratching uncomfortably at the back of his neck as he spoke and trying not to gawk at her two little friends pushing through the thin mesh material of her shirt.   
"Thrills and chills. By the way, Connor, I really like your long, hard..." Lita began murmuring seductively, causing his eyes to widen further, "...neck."   
"Wha...?" Connor's voice trailed off in confusion, as he stared up at the feisty redhead, who ran her tongue over her upper lip and explained sultrily, "The neck of your bass, I mean. It's so sexy." She then deliberately let her bracelet slide off her wrist and clatter to the floor, giving her an excuse to bring a hand up to her lips and exaggeratedly pout, "Oops. Guess I better retrieve that." Lita began to slowly bend down to get her jewelry, causing Connor to swallow hard before he hurriedly and clumsily tripped away from where he'd been previously standing, stammering awkwardly, "I, er, have to go...somewhere!" He hastily turned around...and promptly tripped against a metal folding chair somebody had left in his path, his legs flailing wildly before he hit the ground with a solid thud, his nose cracking against the floor. Lita, meanwhile, straightened up and winked back at the other girls, mouthing the words, _See? Nothing to it!_ as they giggled and cheered enthusiastically. 

Shane groaned and threw down his cards in dismay, cursing both his bad luck and his even worse poker hand. Beside him, Shannon tossed his fellow bandmate a sympathetic look, murmuring, "Don't worry, I know how you feel." Shane rolled his eyes, replying dryly, "You would, Citizen Moore-on." Shannon looked offended at the insult, then glanced down at his form, stripped of virtually every article of clothing save his boxers, and heaved a sigh, conceding grudgingly, "All right, so I guess I _am_ a moron when it comes to playing strip poker!"   
"Come on, quit stalling there, Helms," Max goaded, a triumphant grin on her face that the only pieces of clothing she'd been forced to shed so far were her black platform sandals.   
"Yeah, the only guy we have to bring down now is Matt," Kyrie chimed in, as once again the two girls exchanged low fives. Matt puffed out his chest in an exaggerated act of machismo, declaring proudly, "You'll never take me alive--or with my pants off, for that matter!" A burst of laughter erupted around the table, causing Shane to shoot the more fully-clothed poker players a sweeping but good-natured frown, before the superhero reluctantly began to peel off his jeans as well. 

At that moment a pair of slender hands encircled around his head to cover his eyes, while the girl they belonged to laughed in a clear, sunny voice, "Guess who, Shaney?" Shane stopped in the middle of unzipping his jeans, immensely grateful that the process had been delayed for a few more minutes, while he guessed with a shrug, "I don't know...Molly?" The girl standing behind him rolled her clear emerald-green eyes, before singsonging, "Uh uh--it's your _other_ favorite girl in the whole wide world!" Shane jumped up, nearly upsetting the small poker table in the process as he whirled around, disregarding the girl's hands over his eyes and sweeping her up in a huge, big-brotherly bear hug as he cried out, "Holy surprises! Kelly! I can't believe you actually made it!" Kelly Marie Helms winced in between her older brother's arms, croaking out, "Shane...I can't breathe..." Shane sheepishly let go of his sister, allowing the pretty twenty-two-year-old North Carolinian to step back and smooth down her perfectly crimped dark brown hair. Kelly then swept the rest of the poker players in a bright smile, opening her green eyes their widest when she caught sight of the three men all in various stages of undress.   
"Shane Gregory Helms," she began to chastise her older brother in a bossy tone of voice while placing her hands on her hips, "what exactly do you think you're doing?!" Shane shot his baby sister a sour look, grumbling, "Oh, please, like you came here with the most innocent of intentions!" Kelly laughed, consciously showing off her dimples as she admitted in a carefree voice, "Yes, well, at least I'm not going to be topless--and, in Shannon's case, bottomless as well!--" the blonde cruiserweight blushed crimson--"when I meet all my potential future boyfriends!" Her green eyes sparkled impishly, as she added, "Speaking of which, when are you going to introduce me to all those available WWE hotties?" Shane rolled his eyes, grumbling cheerfully, "And to think I'd deluded myself into thinking that you'd dropped by because you missed your bigger brother!"   
"Not a chance," Kelly breezed with a smile. "You know the WWE's pretty much recruited all the hotties from the South--the Hardyz, Shannon, Randy Orton from the Missouri area...speaking of which, where _is_ that ladies' killer, anyway? He's such a hunk!"   
"At the airport, picking up a batch of competition for his affections," Shane wasted no time in replying smugly. Kelly frowned, before shrugging off the inconvenience and declaring, "Yes, well, there's plenty of other hotties around! I'm bound to meet my Prince Charming somehow!" And she tossed back her headful of glossy chestnut hair and sang out laughingly, "Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match; find me a find, catch me a catch!" 

Kyrie perked up when she heard the pretty brunette's singing voice, calling out, "Hey, you're pretty good, you know!" Kelly smiled back none too modestly.   
"Thanks," she preened, toying around with her silver Hurricane lavaliere. "I'm sure you've got a pretty good set of pipes yourself, if your band's been selected for this tour." Kyrie shrugged dismissively, before suggesting, "Well yeah, but you, girl, could really give Christina Aguilera a run for her money! How'd you like to join Verbena? Caitlin and Amanda were just talking on the plane about how they'd still need a fourth member, and I'm sure you'd be perfect." Kelly's eyes widened, her dimples deepening in a bright smile as she asked happily, "You're really offering me a spot in your band? Wow, I'm so in!"   
"Kel..." Shane's voice trailed off warningly, before he reminded her, "You know how Dad feels about you singing professionally." Kelly waved his warning off, saying airily, "Yeah, well Dad's stuck all the way in Raleigh, isn't he? Besides, I'm a big girl now, I can make my own decisions." Kyrie was chattering excitedly, "Just wait till I talk this over with Amanda and Caitlin, all right? I'll be right back!"   
"I'm coming with you," Kelly called out, scurrying to follow the shorter brunette as she scurried off in the rest of Verbena's direction. 

"All righty then," Max harrumphed, commanding the attention back to their poker game. "Helms, you lucked out this time, considering how God knows I wouldn't subject your poor sister to seeing you in your boxers on her first day here!" Shane shot her a frosty look, remarking dryly, "Gee, thanks. How very generous of you, Citizen Winters." Max then turned her attention to the other dark-haired North Carolinian at the table, challenging, "Lay 'em out, Hardy, let's see what you've got!" Matt leaned back confidently in his seat, spreading his cards over the table while declaring with a smirk, "Flush." At that one word, Max's grin grew wide enough to match that of the Cheschire Cat, causing Matt's confidence to waver as he asked uneasily, "What? What's so funny?" Max then proceeded to slam down her own cards in the middle of the table, revealing, "Royal flush! You know what that means, Hardy!" Matt shot her a sour look, before grudgingly beginning to peel off his black V1 tank top as she whooped and gloated. 

Kyrie, meanwhile, had dragged Kelly to the first Verbena girl she could find, who just happened to be Caitlin, sitting intently on a couch with her back to them as she viewed something on her widescreen TV with round, fascinated green eyes.   
"Hey, Cait, I think I've just found the last member of Verbena for us," Kyrie began her pitch.   
"Mmm hmm," the blonde Texan on the couch mumbled distractedly in reply.   
"No, seriously, she's a great singer," Kyrie persisted, as Kelly beside her got bored of her "audition" and began to wander off in the direction of the hottest guy she'd seen ever since Vince had stolen the Hardyz from her home state.   
"Mmm hmm," Caitlin mumbled automatically, still keeping her eyes glued steadfastly on the TV screen.   
"Caitlin, are you even listening to me?" Kyrie complained, her voice beginning to take on a whining note.   
"Mmm hmm," came the predictable reply, causing Kyrie to huffily cross her arms over her chest and blow away a stray piece of hair that had fallen into her eyes.   
"Caitlin, your new perfume smells like men's deodorant," she teased, just for fun.   
"Mmm hmm," Caitlin gabbled, refusing to turn around. 

Kyrie clicked her tongue impatiently, before an idea occurred to her as to how to wrench Caitlin away from her TV, and she let out a sudden squeal of, "Oh, my God! Rob Van Dam's bending over to do stretches right in front of us! Doesn't he have the cutest--" She never got to finish her sentence, when Caitlin rocketed up from the couch, trampled over her bandmate, and pirouetted around eagerly in a circle, wondering, "Where? Where? Where is he?" Kyrie groaned, grumbling, "Thanks for the concussion there, Cait. Now that I've _finally_ got your attention, can we please discuss some really important band issues?" Caitlin, disappointment written all over her face when she finally saw Rob sitting down and trying to fix his dead microphone instead of stretching, settled back on the couch and returned to her TV.   
"Take it up with Amanda, Kyrie, I'm really busy right now," the San Antonio native spoke absentmindedly. Kyrie sighed, rolling her eyes and muttering under her breath, "All right, jeez. I guess it must be something really important and groundbreaking on that TV to keep you so entranced." As she began to slowly walk away in Amanda's direction, Caitlin's voice could be distinctly heard fretting, "No, Jerry! Don't take that piece of cheddar--it's the one Tom's attached to his newest mouse-trapping invention!" 

Amanda frowned and pouted when she saw a gorgeous brunette with light brown and blonde highlights in her perfectly crimped chestnut hair flirting away with two men the self-proclaimed Southern belle had already staked out as her own beaus, helpless infuriation evident in her blue-gray eyes when she saw them flirting back.   
"Thanks for the offer," Edge was saying, "but do you really think that a personal massage could help me recover faster from my surgery?" Kelly batted her long, dark lashes back at him, cooing innocently, "Anything to return one of _Smackdown!'s_ brightest and most handsome Superstars to the ring, _ne?"_ Edge laughed uneasily, and Kelly flashed her sweetest smile at him, before turning her attention to Sylvan and standing up on tiptoes to laughingly whisper something into his ear. Amanda glowered and sulked further when she saw that her fair-haired French beau was grinning and whispering back into Kelly's ear, sending her into coy peals of giggles while her cheeks colored faintly with a pretty pink blush. Amanda scowled in outrage, ignoring Christian's hopeful smile as he snuck away from the battlefield that was the Twisted Thugonomics stage, where Jericho and John were apparently trying to jab each other's eyes out with their respective microphones. Before the new IC Champ could scuttle over in her direction to adoringly spoil her rotten, the blue-eyed Verbena girl had stalked off to where Kelly had gathered around herself a circle of admiring men--_Amanda's_ admiring men! Rushing up to René, who seemed to have thankfully avoided Kelly's sphere of influence--at least for the moment--Amanda quickly hooked her arm through his and spoke up haughtily, "Let's get away from here before that ungainly Yankee corrupts all of us with her utter lack of decorum!" 

Kelly failed to even hear her remark, or to point out that she actually _was_ from the South whereas with Amanda it was just wishful thinking, because at that moment, the wide doors to the amphitheater were slammed open with a clang, drawing everyone's attention, including the bickering John and Jericho's. Randy stood at the forefront of the group underneath the arching doorway, an exhausted and somewhat pitiful look on his face, his hair sticking up in rather unattractive clumps and his clothing completely disheveled to match his haggard expression.   
"SARS Race...Scarlett O'Hara...Scarlet Rage...the band from Hell...has finally arrived!" he announced in a tired croak. And with that, his eyes rolled into his head, and he collapsed in a heap in front of Stephanie's two-hundred-dollar designer pumps. Behind him, Deron was trying to discourage a pair of particularly feisty groupies from pinching him in a rather inappropriate area, as Camryn and Shannon yelled at their lawyers via cell phone for failing to prevent Officer Brest from suing their collective asses off, Rusty's eyes lit up when she spotted something--or someone--in the room and quietly snuck off...and Jeff and Raven continued to dreamily repeat their respective names to each other. 


	5. Chapter Four: Kickstarting The Tour

A/N # 1: Yep, it's that wonderful time of the year again--back to school. Which means, unfortunately, that I won't be able to update as frequently as I used to--between all the AP classes, the SAT prep courses, not to mention the actual SAT's themselves, I'll be lucky if I make it out of this wonderful scholastic year with my sanity intact. Yech. Anyways, please don't freak out if you check in next Thursday and don't find a nice, nifty, new chapter of _Vinyl Act_ up, it doesn't mean I've abandoned this story like so many other authors have their Mary Sues, it simply means I'm currently buried under a load of schoolwork, and couldn't quite get any writing done. Keep an eye out, though, because I'm determined to push this baby into the double-digits. Until then, see you all around...unless conks out again, like it seems to be doing each time I happen to upload a new chapter. 

A/N # 2 (yes, I get to have two of these, since I'm the author!): By the way, for all those of you who might be wondering by the end of this chapter, the song that Urban Trash performs is called "One Way Or Another," by Blondie, while Verbena's song is Katie Cassidy's version of "I Think I Love You."

A/N # 3 (I'll stop after this one, I promise!): Enjoy the story! And please don't forget to review at the end--they're what keep me going. A happy Katherinea creative Katherine

* * *

A sea of roughly thirty-five thousand people greeted Vinyl Act's opening act, punk band Urban Trash, as they prepared to kick off the first show of the tour. Melody spun around on her heels as she walked up the steps and onto the stage, her long skirt flowing with her twirling movement while she smiled contentedly to herself, silently grateful that she'd met a friend as nice and sweet as Kurt on this summer festival. Max, meanwhile, was confidently tapping her drumsticks against the front parts of her thighs as she walked, a huge smirk on her features as she recalled back to rehearsals, where through her and Kyrie's combined efforts they'd managed to eventually strip all three North Carolina boys down to their boxers at the end of their strip poker game. Connor merely walked at a silent gait, his bass slung low across his waist, his reddish-purple nose in a cast and swollen to the size of a jumbo hot dog, all thanks to Lita's coquetries back at the amphitheater in Stamford.

All three band members took their respective positions on the stage, Melody walking up to the microphone stand, her guitar swaying back and forth with her movements as she greeted warmly, "Hi, our name's Urban Trash, and we're very happy to be playing here for all of you people."  
"Yeah, rock on!" Max shouted from her place behind her drum set, hollering the three words loud enough so as to be heard without the aid of an amplifying device. Melody grinned at Max's words, before saying, "All right, then, guess we're all ready to rock out here, so my bandmates and I will just get to the first song!" She stepped back a couple of paces, before exchanging meaningful looks with the rest of Urban Trash as they crashed into the first song of their setlist.

**_Song lyrics to Blondie's "One Way or Another" removed, in accordance with FFN's newest brilliant idea_**

Melody paused and took a very brief break from singing, but before she could resume her duties on vocals, an unexpected barrage of colorful fireworks simultaneously went off over the stage, startling all three band members who, used to the stripped-down sound and anti-frippery ideals of punk, hadn't even thought of including pyrotechnics in their set. Much to the bewilderment and dismay of Urban Trash, the fireworks and explosions ceased to stop even after the two-minute mark had passed and Max had nearly screamed herself hoarse hollering at the backstage crew to "cut out the goddamn poor man's Fourth of July celebration already!"

Suddenly, a flash pot exploded right underneath Connor's feet, sending a burst of fireworks rocketing right up to his butt as he let out a high-pitched, strangled little squeal. Melody and Max could only watch in horror and just the teensiest bit of fascination as their bandmate continued to frantically run around trying to put out his flaming ass, before a hidden trapdoor suddenly opened below Urban Trash's frontwoman and guitarist. Melody let out a shrill wail, as she promptly plunged down and under the stage, much to the confusion of their audience.

"Thanks a lot, you two," Max fumed, angrily tapping her drumsticks against her knees when she realized she was now the only remaining member of Urban Trash who was still able to play. "Yeah, sure, let's just all leave and dump the workload onto Shorty, why don't we all!" Before the petite drummer could fully launch into an angry tirade against her bandmates, a second blast of pyro gone awry caused her drum kit to explode right in front of her face in a glorious flash of crimson sparks. When the smoke cleared up, Max emerged into view, thankfully still alive and sitting on her stool behind what little remained of her drum set. Her normally dark red hair was singed so badly that all of it had been turned as black as their charcoal-colored tips, and her tattered and scorched fishnet shirt and bondage pants weren't in much better condition. Max drew in a shaky breath, automatically working her mouth into a weak grin while she peeped in what she hoped was a tongue-in-cheek way, "Heh. That would be my Keith Moon impression."

Backstage, the ever reliable, dependable roadies--otherwise known as Brian "Spanky" Kendrick and Zach Gowen--turned to each other and freaked out at the same time, "I can't believe you set off Scarlet Rage's stage theatrics during Urban Trash's set!" Spanky leaned back, huffing insultedly, _"Me!_ _You_ were the one who rigged the wrong set! Does this _look_ like the headliners' stage to you!" Zach blinked, a bit startled by the angry outburst coming from such a baby-faced, happy-go-lucky little blonde, before hurriedly puffing back, "Yeah, well _you_ were the one who just _had_ to know what those nifty little red and blue buttons and switches did!" Spanky pouted.  
"But they were so shiny, I just _had_ to touch them," he sulked, idly drawing circles on the ground with the tip of his left sneaker. Zach shot him a smirk.  
"You _do_ realize that a person overhearing this conversation would be more likely to assume you were talking about Jericho's pants, don't you?" he jibed, causing Spanky to give the smaller cruiserweight his meanest frown, which looked downright alien on his cherubic face.

"Melody!" a sudden male voice blubbered loudly behind the two, causing both startled "roadies" to nearly rocket right through the roof, as Kurt pushed past both Spanky and Zach and blundered out to rescue the singer/guitarist who was still trapped underneath the stage. As the two little cruiserweights watched in bemusement--and certain degrees of amusement as well--Kurt floundered down the stage with a warrior cry of, "Don't worry, Melly, I'll save you!" tripped so very gracefully over the microphone stand, and went sailing through the air like some human cannonball, before landing with a solid smack right down the trapdoor entrance and onto Melly.  
"Ahck! My spine!" the dark-haired Aussie gasped painfully. As Kurt scrambled around to ease the pressure from Melody's spine, his foot unwittingly hit a switch, causing the platform they'd both fallen onto to slowly begin to rise.

Onstage, Max was too preoccupied with trying to salvage what she could of her drum set to either notice or help out Melody and Kurt from their platform constructed underneath the stage--the one meant for Scarlet Rage's Deron Cutler to spring up and out of at the beginning of his band's performance.  
"Hey," she snapped with a frown, her voice floating over to the backstage area where Spanky and Zach were still bickering back and forth, "I need a damn drumstick, where's my drumstick! It better not have gone up in flames like Connor's Irish ass!" Spanky overheard her complaint and went about in search for a new drumstick for Max, then brightened up when he saw a nice little staff just lying around by an equipment crate near Zach, and bent over to pick it up, wrenching the sucker loose from where it'd been rather stubbornly attached to.  
"Here you go, Miss Winters!" he called out, chucking it in the direction of the Urban Trash percussionist with surprising strength. "It's a bit on the heftier side, and it's got this weird little shoe-shaped thingie attached to one end, but it'll do!" Zach's eyes widened, and he stopped uttering the curses that had fallen on Spanky's deaf ears, opting instead to squall, "Spanky, you dumb blonde! That was my prosthetic leg you just threw at her!"

While the two little cruiserweights-turned-incompetent-roadies waited tensely, a screeching yelp flew back at them from onstage, where Max had let out a shrill squawk when Zach's prosthetic leg had hurtled through the air toward her and smacked right against her forehead, effectively knocking the poor drummer out cold. The plastic appendage bounced off Max's head and sailed across the stage, landing right at the feet of a blushing Melody, who'd finally managed to disengage herself from Kurt after several whistles and catcalls had resounded throughout the audience when the two had risen from the trapdoor tangled up in a rather suggestive position. The Australian-born frontwoman took one good look at the leg that had just plopped down in front of her like some prop from a bad horror flick, and wasted no time in letting out a terrified siren wail.  
"Oh, my God!" the poor singer/guitarist howled in a keening soprano, raising her hands to her face and crying, "That's a leg! That's somebody's amputated leg! Oh, God, get it away from me! Connor! Kurt! Anybody!"

Of the two men she'd named who might help her out, Connor at least was obviously going to be unable to rush to her aid. The Urban Trash bassist had long since collapsed after his fiery experience with a flash pot, and a team of EMT's was currently putting out the bonfire on his ass, before loading him onto a stretcher and discreetly wheeling the blonde Irishman off the stage and away from the chaos.

* * *

Caitlin's grass-green eyes widened in alarm when she heard Stephanie's urgent request, before spluttering into her cell phone, "N-n-now? But I thought we weren't supposed to go on until seven o' clock--" She paused as _Smackdown!'s_ general manager cut her off and hastily explained that the three members of Vinyl Act's original opening act were currently all incapacitated--Melody was decisively sick after Kurt had dumped an entire gallon of milk down her throat in an effort to cure her fake-leg-induced hysteria, Max had developed a temporary bout of amnesia from Spanky's accidental conk to her head, and Connor was currently being treated for first-degree burns at the nearest E.R. The festival needed Verbena to take Urban Trash's slot on the program, and it needed them to take the stage _now! _Caitlin frowned thoughtfully, biting down on her lower lip as her mind digested this piece of news, before she sighed and reluctantly agreed with a shrug of her slender shoulders, "All right, then. I guess the other girls and I have no choice but to go on earlier than we'd thought."

Kyrie, lounging on a velvet loveseat in the spacious Verbena dressing room and idly flipping through a copy of _Vogue,_ glanced up and asked curiously once Caitlin had finished her conversation, "We're going on early today?"  
"Yup," Caitlin nodded, hurriedly straightening out her Carolina-blue halter top and cargo capris, before informing her bandmate, "We have no choice, Urban Trash is physically unable to go on." Kyrie sighed, closing her glossy magazine and stretching as she got off her seat before telling her fellow Texan, "Well, I'm as ready as I'll ever be. Let's go."

The two girls started to leave their dressing room and head out onto the stage, when Caitlin suddenly paused and motioned for her fellow Verbena vixen to halt as well.  
"Hold on, Kyrie," she began. "We can't go on just yet--Manda and Kel are nowhere to be found, remember?" Kyrie stopped and frowned, listening to the impatient roar of the crowds and jerking her thumb in the general direction of the stage area.  
"Cait, are you sure it's very wise to let thirty-five thousand people swelter in the hot summer sun without any live entertainment for much longer?" she pointed out with an arch of her eyebrows. "They're going to riot if we keep them waiting while we run around trying to find those two Scarlett O'Hara wannabes!" Caitlin went over this possibility in her mind, before reluctantly conceding, "All right, then. I guess it'll just be us two until someone finds Amanda and Kelly for us. They'll have to turn up sooner or later anyway, right?" Kyrie nodded.  
"Of course they do," she reassured her friend. "Now come, let's go already."

Caitlin and Kyrie hurriedly jogged the rest of the way, sprinting onto their stage before the announcer was even finished introducing them and quickly cueing the live band backing them up to start the music. A series of sweet, surprisingly catchy notes floated over the air, and the two Verbena girls automatically launched into their intricately choreographed song-and-dance routine.  
"This morning I woke up with this feeling/I didn't know how to deal with/And so I just decided to myself I'd hide it to myself/And never talk about it/And didn't I go and shout it when you walked into the room," Caitlin sang first, before both her and Kyrie delved into the chorus together.  
"I think I love you--I think I love you, so what am I so afraid of/I'm afraid that I'm not sure of--a love there is no cure for," the two girls sang together, their voices soaring over the musical instruments backing them up. "I think I love you--isn't that what life is made of/Though it worries me to say that I've never felt this way." The two girls exchanged significant looks as the first part of their song was finished, both silently wondering just where the hell the rest of their band had scattered to.

Cue over to the backstage area, where Amanda and Kelly had seemingly inveigled themselves into a boyfriend-catching contest to see which of them could snag the most guys. Kelly had her arm looped firmly around Sylvan's elbow, and was currently flirting outrageously with both him and Edge, consciously tossing back her lustrous chestnut hair as often as she could get away with so that her earrings danced and jingled like tiny golden bells. Amanda quickly covered up a jealous scowl with her most dazzling smile, one hand locked in René's larger one, the other stroking Shane's biceps as she giggled and chatted him up, much to Kelly's impotent rage. The North Carolinian singer could only watch as her own brother fell for the girlish charm and giggles of her rival, before fuming and redoubling her efforts with Sylvan and Edge.

At that moment, both girls spotted the same victim--er, potential boyfriend--at the same time, and practically trampled over all the other beaus they'd already collected to get to Randy at the same time.  
"Randy, you handsome old thing, you," Amanda called out laughingly in what she hoped was a charming Georgian accent, while at the same time trying to disengage herself from Christian, who was proving to be much harder to shake off than either Shane or René. "I'll bet you left Missouri for the WWE just to break the poor little heart of this fellow Southerner, huh?" Kelly rolled her eyes, muttering snidely under her breath, "Damn, girl, that was a God-awful impression of Scarlett O'Hara if I ever saw one," earning herself a nasty look from Amanda which she ignored as she declared brightly, "Randy, long time no see! Think you can spare me a little peek at those abs of steel there, pretty please?"

Back on the Verbena stage, Kyrie and Caitlin were trying to juggle singing, dancing, and plotting out ways to torture and then kill Amanda and Kelly at the same time. _I'm telling you, watching the Muppets movie twenty times in a row is the way to go, _Kyrie was mouthing silently to her fellow Texas native, before quickly plastering an automatic million-watt smile on her face and singing out obediently upon her cue, "I think I love you, so what am I so afraid of/I'm afraid I'm not too sure of a love there is no cure for..."

At that moment, a certain blonde MF'r happened to peek his head out from the side of the stage to whisper some directions into a stage technician's ear. Kyrie conveniently glanced over in Shannon Moore's direction at the exact moment that he appeared, causing her to freeze on the spot. Caitlin, still dancing and unaware that Shannon had made his entrance, wound up bumping into her fellow Verbena girl and nearly falling right onto her nose. As the blonde San Antonio native winced and tried to regain her balance, Kyrie stared, entranced, at Shannon while he spoke some words with a lighting guy. Conveniently forgetting that she was currently on a stage and performing for thirty-five thousand people, Kyrie giggled happily, "Ooh, I _know_ I love _you!" _in the blonde MF'rs direction, before scampering right off the stage without a second thought.  
"Shanny, wait for me!" she called out breathlessly, tottering after him when his head disappeared behind the curtains.

Caitlin, left all alone on the stage to face the wrath of the audience, glanced around uncertainly before letting out a startled yelp and ducking as a rotten tomato was chucked in her direction.  
"Go back to Barbie Hell, blondie!"  
"You're awful purtty; show us your tits already!"  
"Teenyboppers suck, we came here to see Urban Trash!"  
"Get off the stage, where are Jeffykins and Matty-poo?"  
Caitlin gawked wide-eyed at the sea of disenfranchised fans, then tittered nervously and squeaked out, "Um, Amanda? Kelly? Kyrie? Anybody? Help!"

Unfortunately for Caitlin, however, none of her fellow bandmates did quite manage to make it to the stage and help her out. Amanda and Kelly were still backstage fighting over Randy, each having gotten a hold of one of his arms and jerking vigorously until the youngest member of Evolution was nearly ripped in two. Kyrie was stumbling adoringly after Shannon, practically exuding idol worship as she followed the blonde cruiserweight around the winding backstage area...and then right into the men's restroom.  
"Ow," she groaned painfully, wincing as she discovered the hard way that she'd been too captivated by her Shannon-sighting to even realize he'd closed the door of his bathroom stall until she'd walked right into it and ended up bumping her forehead against the stiff, beige-painted plastic.

* * *

Stephanie's eyebrows practically flew right off her forehead when she heard the unwelcome news, before screeching frantically, _"What! _What do you mean you can't find them!" Standing a few feet in front of her, Matt winced and rubbed gingerly at his kaput ears, before repeating, "I mean all the members of Scarlet Rage are firmly MIA...Well, except for this one, but it's kind of hard to put on a headlining show with just a drummer." Here he jerked his thumb in the direction of Shannon Sumter, who was leaning against a wall with a glazed expression on her face, obviously high out of her mind as she cursed weakly while clutching an empty plastic Doggie bag in one hand and a near-empty bottle of vodka in the other. Stephanie groaned loudly at this bleak sight, nearly tearing her hair out in frustration as she lamented, "Great, just great! It's just our luck to be stuck with the poor man's Guns N' Roses on this tour!" At this, Shannon shot a glassy-eyed glare at the taller brunette, struggling to pull herself to her full height while snapping huffily, "Hey, we aren't the poor man's Guns N' fucking Roses! We're the poor fucking man's Stonewall Jackson!" Stephanie turned to Matt, hissing angrily, "And just what the hell does she mean by that?" Matt shrugged helplessly, guessing, "She probably means the Rolling Stones instead of that Civil War guy. You know, Rolling _Stones, Stone_wall Jackson? I hear that you tend to get these things confused when you're under the influence of smack and vodka at the same time." Stephanie sighed impatiently, rubbing at her temples before yelling sulkily, "Whatever, I don't care! Look, just assemble a search party and go flush out the rest of Scarlet Rage! They're supposed to go on in less than half an hour, and we can't properly close a concert if the headliners don't show up on time!" Matt backed off, looking terrified by her supersonic assault, before saluting and squeaking, "Yes, ma'am!" and scrambling off. Shannon wandered away as well, hunting for a lighter.

Meanwhile, in a little dressing room, Rusty was grinning and celebrating, "See, I told you we would make it on time." Jericho smirked at her words, teasing, "Yes, it's quite a shocker that all five of you managed to get out of jail in time to make it up to Stamford." Rusty flashed him a mock scowl, warning in her most threatening voice, "Watch it there, Jerky--technically I'm still supposed to be PMS'ing, and the last thing you'd want is to be locked in a room all alone with me while I'm in my bitchy mode." Jericho tossed her a lazy grin, bragging with exaggerated macho swagger, "I think I can handle you in all of your quirky moods, Miss Briar." Rusty smiled and crossed the room, snuggling up to him and murmuring, "Well, so long as you don't go announcing it to the entire world. You know the others will give us utter hell if they find out that we've been dating for the past year-and-a-half!"  
"I'll say," Jericho agreed, running a hand through his long blonde hair before he added, "Just how long do you think we can keep this up, though?" Rusty frowned, leaning back in her seat and biting down on her lower lip.  
"I'm not sure," she admitted. "I know we can't hide our relationship forever, but..."  
"But, we can always cross that bridge once we get there," Jericho cut her off, drawing her closer toward him. Rusty grinned and playfully slapped him on the chest.  
"That's a pretty unromantic thing to say," she teased. Jericho shrugged, pulling her in for a kiss as he murmured, "Hey, if you want romantic, I can always dress up as Romeo and come serenade you at your tour bus window!" Rusty giggled, kissing him lightly on the lips before revealing, "Then you'd be getting slapped all the way back to Winnipeg for your troubles, Mr. Christopher Irvine, because only Shannon and Camryn have window-side beds, and they've both made it pretty clear that neither of them appreciate being woken up in the middle of the night by some guy screeching out a love song under their windows."  
"Ouch," Jericho remarked good-naturedly, before leaning in for another kiss.

Before the couple could get too cozy, however, a loud, rather obnoxious pounding started sounding at their door, as Shannon's inebriated voice drifted in to announce, "Hey, we're supposed to take the fucking stage in less than half a fucking hour! Rusty, I know you're fucking in there, I heard you say something about fucking serenades!" Rusty and Jericho exchanged frantic looks.  
"We can't let her see us together like this, she'll know we're dating no matter how smashed she is," Rusty hissed fretfully, as Jericho seemed to get an idea and grabbed at a light tan trench coat hanging on the wall near him.  
"Quick," he whispered, tossing the coat at her just as Shannon succeeded in barging inside.

The raven-haired drummer peered with glazed dark brown eyes at her fellow bandmate, noting how she suddenly seemed to have grown three or four feet in the space of a few hours.  
"Rusty?" Shannon asked, blinking and rubbing her eyes while silently wondering whether she'd taken too many hits of coke and was hallucinating. "That _is_ you, isn't it?" Rusty plastered what she hoped was a convincing smile onto her face.  
"Definitely," she reassured Shannon, before hastily adding, "And, uh, I know we're supposed to go on next. Just let me, um, change my outfit and I'll be out in five. Can you give me some privacy here?" Shannon shrugged.  
"Suit yourself," she mumbled, before exiting the dressing room and closing the door behind her, muttering something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like, "Shit, I think I need a goddamn pair of glasses."

As soon as Shannon had left, what looked like Rusty's legs suddenly buckled and collapsed under her. Scarlet Rage's second guitarist quickly opened her trench coat, to reveal that she'd been sitting on Jericho's shoulders the whole time she'd been conversing with Shannon. Jericho dredged up what he hoped was a macho grin, cracking, "No offense or anything, Rust, but you need to seriously look into Jenny Craig." Rusty swatted playfully at the back of his head for his jibe, causing the blonde Canadian to quip in his best John Travolta imitation, "Would you just watch the hair!"

Once Shannon had left Rusty's dressing room, the dark-haired drummer walked a couple of paces away before stopping and pulling a joint out of her jeans pocket, trying to light it with no success whatsoever. Finally, she grew fed up and tossed both joint and lighter into a nearby trash can, before getting ready to stalk off--presumably in the direction of the stage--and promptly bumping right into Sean O'Haire. The force of the impact caused Shannon to bounce off his muscular chest, but just as it looked like she was about to regain her footing, Test happened to walk by, too engrossed in Torrie Wilson's _Playboy_ pictorial to watch where he was going and unwittingly bouncing Shannon back into O'Haire.  
"Fuck you!" Shannon screeched indignantly, as she bounced off of O'Haire and back into Test, then back into O'Haire, then Test, then O'Haire, until the poor drummer was ping ponging back and forth between the two muscular wrestlers like some ridiculous and angrily cursing monkey in the middle. Finally, Shannon managed to stop all the madness, when the amount of vodka and cocaine in her bloodstream combined with all the bumps she'd taken to her head to knock her out cold just as she bounced once again into O'Haire. The ex-Devil's Advocate smirked and stroked his goatee as he reached over to gallantly catch the unconscious dark-eyed Rager before she fell, cocking an eyebrow and boasting, "Yep, I just seem to have that effect on women."

While Rusty had been sneaking around with Jericho and Shannon was serving as O'Haire and Test's human ping pong ball, the Innovator of Mattitude had been bullied into looking for one Raven Emerald, since Stephanie's logic deduced that the dark-haired bassist would be most likely found schmoozing with Matt's younger brother. The older Hardy Boy stomped without hesitation toward the candy machine, where he found with no problem Raven and Jeff, the latter carefully painting a little pink flower on the former's cheek. Matt pointedly cleared his throat, so startling his brother that the more colorful Hardy's hand jumped and he wound up smearing a big glob of glow-in-the-dark pink paint across Raven's cheek.  
"Honestly, some hot girls just have the worst taste in men," Matt complained under his breath, rolling his eyes at the two lovebirds. As Jeff hurriedly went to work on wiping away the paint he'd coated over Raven's face, the latter began gushing enthusiastically about all the wonders that were Jeffrey Nero Hardy, causing his older brother to roll his eyes in disgust.

Unlike Matt, who'd managed to find a member of Scarlet Rage in less than five minutes, John had fared pitifully as far as his search went, managing to stumble across frontman Deron Cutler with Stacy Keibler only when he'd decided that he'd had enough of searching and needed to pee. John had then found Deron chatting Stacy up by a column across from the restrooms, standing up on tiptoes to match her height and bragging about all his sexy stage moves.  
"Yo, your whole band's supposed to go on in less den twenty minutes," John informed the blonde Miami native, who grinned carelessly and chirped, "Cool, guess Cruise better come out of the bathroom, then." John's eyebrows snapped up at those words, as he echoed incredulously, "She's been in da _bathroom_ all dis time!" Deron shrugged, as though he saw nothing peculiar in that particular decision.  
"Sure, isn't that where you were going, anyway?" he asked simply, before returning to the giggling Stacy and bragging loudly about how he had the best tan out of all the other rock frontmen in the industry. John removed his backwards baseball cap to scratch absently at his short-cropped dark hair, admitting with somewhat reluctance, "Well, yeah--but not da _women's_ bathroom! Dat'd be wack!"  
"Oh, no, it's okay, feel free to go in and join her," Deron turned his attention from Stacy long enough to reassure John, adding helpfully, "Everybody barges in on Cruise when she's in the bathroom, anyway! Go ahead, it's not like she'll throttle you for it or anything." John's eyes widened when he heard those words, muttering something under his breath about how the whole band was wack...but that didn't stop him from taking Deron's advice and going into the women's restroom.

Once inside, he had no problem locating Camryn sitting on the marble-topped sink, casually smoking a cigarette while a pair of headphones, which had slid down from her ears to around her neck, blasted AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long" loud enough for John to hear all the way across the room from her. Camryn stared up at the rapper from inside a haze of smoke, narrowing her eyes as though to try and focus them on his face as he began tentatively, "Your band's going on in fifteen...Are you really _smoking_ in da bathroom?" Camryn shrugged his question away, as though what she was currently doing was the most natural pre-show activity in the world.  
"Sure, why not? It's more private in here." She then tilted languid emerald eyes in his direction, asking seductively, "Why do you find that so hard to relate to? Haven't you ever done it in a bathroom before?"  
"Eeep..." John swallowed hard, continuing to gawk as she uncrossed her long legs and stood up, nonchalantly putting out the burning tip of her cigarette before tossing it into the trash. Straightening out her clothes and picking up her guitar--a sleek, wine-colored PRS which had been lying carelessly on the sink--Camryn pushed past John and walked out, flashing him another suggestive smile as though to extend an invitation about "doing it" in the bathroom together some time in the future.

Outside, Deron was still bragging and showing his stage moves to Stacy, who would giggle and clap her hands after each demonstration.  
"And this is my favorite move," Deron was saying, grabbing a beer can and holding it in his right hand like a microphone. "Basically, I take the mike off its stand and then sort of drop it below my waistline, catching it right in front of you-know-what--" here he paused and winked good-humoredly, before continuing--"while simultaneously (whoa, big word!) using my hips and legs to thrust forward in a short, fast grinding movement. The ladies go absolutely nuts for that move, if I do say so myself. Make sure you look out for it during our performance tonight, all right?" As Stacy nodded and smiled, Deron began tossing his beer can from one hand to another, admitting with a frown, "Of course, that move _would_ look even better if done by someone with really long legs. Someone like you, Stace. I'll teach it to you later, if you want, but right now--"

Just then, Camryn happened to exit the restroom, with John following closely behind, and Deron's eyes lit up as he said cheerfully, "Oh, how convenient. Cruise, come here a minute and show our loyal fans the Raging Grind." Camryn shrugged, before obligingly crossing over to the center and demonstrating the same move Deron had performed just a short while earlier. John goggled wide-eyed at the sight, causing Stacy to roll her eyes and sneer, "Men: you're so easily turned on by these little things, aren't you?"

At that moment, the announcer's voice was heard all the way from the main stage, as he introduced Vinyl Act's headliners with a loud cry of, "Ladies and gentlemen, straight from detox, here's our final band, Scarlet Raaaaaaaaaaage!" John and Stacy turned around to stare at Deron and Camryn, demanding incredulously at the same time, "Straight from _detox?"_ Deron shuffled uncomfortably under their combined disbelieving glares, bringing his hands up and defending himself, "Hey, don't look at me, the most I've ever had is a couple of shots!" All three then turned to shift their attention to Camryn, who glared irritably at all the questioning looks she was getting before shrugging and muttering, "Which detox? I've been packed off to so many of them, it's become rather hard to keep track of their names."

The sober members of the little group were about to fall down in frustration, when at that moment the various other members of Scarlet Rage emerged. Rusty was the first one to scuttle over, smoothing down her hair and silently hoping that nobody would get too suspicious if they realized she was now wearing Jericho's clear silver-tinted sunglasses pushed up her coffee-colored locks. She flashed everyone a guilty smile, just as Shannon came into view. The heavy metal drummer was only now regaining her consciousness, and was being supported by a smirking O'Haire, at the same time that Raven and Jeff bounced over, happily holding hands while Matt behind them muttered something about how the dysfunctional couple couldn't be pried apart with crowbars. As Raven continued to bubble about how her darling Jeffykins's favorite Skittles flavor was orange, Scarlet Rage gathered its members together and collectively stumbled off toward the main stage.

John and Stacy gaped after the disappearing backs of the five hard rockers, then exchanged wary looks.  
"Yo, lemme get dis right," John began. "Dem wackos are our main act, right?" Stacy sighed, flipping back her long blonde hair as she gave an averse nod.  
"Unfortunately, yes," she admitted. John frowned at those two words.  
"Man, we'll be deader den Vanilla Ice's career if dey continue to headline!" he complained, a vivid image running through his head of the venue up in flames while the members of Scarlet Rage happily led the crowds in a Woodstock-worthy riot.  
"Word life," Stacy agreed tersely.


	6. Chapter Five: Publicity Stunts Are So Mu...

A/N: Yes, I know, this chapter's way, waaaaaaaaaay overdue, not to mention insanely long as well; I guess I went a little overboard here. Anyway, I'm afraid from now on, this is about as fast as I'll be able to update Vinyl Act, because I simply don't have any free time to write. Maybe it'll work out once Thanksgiving rolls around...but at the rate the evil dictator presiding over my pre-calculus class is working us, I seriously doubt even that. 

I'm hoping this ridiculously long chapter will tide you guys over until late October, and by the way, I received so many good entries for the new bass player that I've decided to take five characters who really captured my interest and sort of write them into the next couple of chapters, which will be the audition process (and which will also see more of Max and Mel--sorry about them playing somewhat minor roles in this installment, girls), until one character remains as the permanent new bassist of Urban Trash.

P.S. The songs that Scarlet Rage perform (or at least try to perform) in this chapter are Mötley Crüe's "Wild Side," AC/DC's "Big Balls," and Spinal Tap's "Big Bottom," in that order.

* * *

A circle of proud, determined warriors gathered around a small table to determine the fate of Mankind as we know it.  
"All right, here we go: Rock, paper, scissors," Caitlin declared, having been chosen to represent her band since, quite frankly, she was the sanest one out of the fearsome foursome that made up Verbena. _Hmm, I should probably go with paper--too many people choose rock,_ the fair-haired pop star thought to herself, as she stretched out the palm of her hand to form said shape. Gail, meanwhile, was silently telling herself, _Definitely paper--who'd be dumb enough to go with rock again after everybody went with rock last time? _Deron grinned, having volunteered to represent his band because the rest of the Ragers were either too pissed off (do you even have to guess?) or too involved with their sweethearts to give a crap. _I love rock,_ he thought happily to himself, a wide smile spreading across his features. _Nothing beats good old rock, that's for sure. _Edge, meanwhile, was frowning thoughtfully as he automatically used his hand to form paper. _Uh oh, I think my hair's beginning to get split ends,_ he winced. _Note to self: Steal Jericho's extra-special, custom-made, guava-extract conditioner tonight while he's off harassing the hotel maids for not folding his shiny checkered pants just the right way._

At that moment, all hands were whipped out to the front to show the result--four papers against one rock.  
"Cool, I win," Deron cheered happily to himself, and was rewarded with four heads snapping in his direction and correcting him in unison, "No, bonehead, paper covers rock, that means you lose!" Deron shrugged, the full consequences of this particular defeat having failed to sink in just yet.  
"Oh. Okay, then, whatever," the blonde Floridian mumbled in his usual happy-go-lucky way, when at that moment, his loss at Rock, Paper, Scissors registered with Rusty, long enough to snap her out of her dreamy stupor where she'd been exchanging lovesick googly eyes with Jericho from across the room. The curvy Queens native promptly flew over to Deron as if to confirm his defeat, before letting out a heart-wrenching wail of, "Nooooooo! Deron, how could you lose like that! Do you know what this means!"

Rusty's tragic howl drew the attention of the other Ragers--even Raven, who pried herself away from her fascinating conversation with Jeff about how he should shave his chest more often, and wandered over and see what all the commotion was about.  
"You know what this means," Edge pronounced, breathing a sigh of immense relief that his band--and, most importantly, his own gorgeous-pearly-whites-boasting self--had succeeded in worming out of the commitment that a loss at Rock, Paper, Scissors would mean.  
"Yeah, Cutler, tough luck on losing and all, but this means your band's going to be promoting the Vinyl Act tour by performing the Adopt A Civil War Relic Concert at that fancy retirement home where they're going to lock away Clive Davis and all those other record label big wigs," Gail spoke up cheerfully, also relieved that she'd avoided this particular half-baked brainchild of a publicity-crazed Vince McMahon. Rusty clapped her hands over her face and moaned something incomprehensible under her breath at this death sentence, while Raven scowled and whined, "Great, our reputation's going to go down the drain _so_ fast...How can a heavy metal band appear at some _retirement home_ of all places!"

Her sulky complaint caught the attention of Camryn and Shannon, who stalked on over to a now extremely apprehensive Deron. Camryn reached him first, and, being the taller of the two, wasted no time in grasping Deron by the neck and hoisting him up into the air and against the wall, while Shannon lashed out at the hapless frontman like a Fury, exploding in all her freely cursing glory, "Cutler, you motherfucking idiot! What the fuck do you think you're doing, dipshit, don't you fucking have any fucking sense in that fucking empty vessel you call your fucking head!"  
"We are _not_ going to waste an evening playing in front of Civil War relics," Camryn added in an angry hiss, her eyes flashing emerald fire as she emphasized her words, "I didn't form Scarlet Rage just to let it piss away at that kind of shitfest! Ragers. Do. NOT. Perform. For Wrinkled Old Fossils!"

Stacy winced when she noticed that Deron's face was beginning to turn as blue as his Megadeth T-shirt, and spoke up hurriedly before the two raven-haired vixens could throttle him in their fury, "Hey, come on you two, don't go killing the poor guy. It's not worth getting life in prison for five minutes of cruel satisfaction." Deron, wheezing rather pitifully, had enough strength left in him to give Stacy a wry _Gee-thanks-a-lot_ look, before Camryn and Shannon seemed to have resigned to their fate and grudgingly dropped the blonde frontman. As Deron plopped down onto the floor and Camryn and Shannon paced around angrily in a manner not unlike that of caged black panthers, Raven started to sulk, "I don't see why Urban Trash don't have to go. I mean, they're always going on and on about how much they want to make it into the big leagues and everything..."

Melody and Max snapped up at this remark, and the latter raised her head enough to glare at Raven and mutter grumpily, "Thanks so very much for your incredibly generous offer, but we don't want publicity _that_ badly!" Melody brushed a few strands of chocolate-brown hair behind her ears, adding quietly, "Besides, you know we can't fulfill this for-seniors-only engagement even if we wanted to. We're supposed to be auditioning for a new bassist on that day." Rusty glanced up from where she'd been slouching and trying to convince herself that it couldn't possibly be _that_ horrible to waste her night away performing for an incredibly old, incredibly uptight, and incredibly anti-rock-n'-roll audience, and now looked over with interest in the soft-spoken Australian's direction to ask, "If it's not too intrusive of me to ask, just how exactly did Connor get kicked out of Urban Trash, anyway?"  
"He didn't get "kicked out," I'm afraid," Melody sighed, looking miserable as she scuffed around the tips of her boots on the linoleum tiles.  
"The fucking bastard exploded at the hospital--literally, I might add--and he still owed me four thousand dollars, too," Max grumbled, sounding surprisingly irritable considering her previously feisty mood during rehearsals and performances. Rusty's eyebrows nearly flew off her hairline when she heard those particular words...Unfortunately, she also seemed to be the only one interested, as Raven had drifted back to Jeff to sulk, Deron was pretending that he'd gone through a near-death experience just to wring some sympathy from Stacy, and Camryn and Shannon normally didn't give a crap about anything that didn't directly concern them, anyway.

"How did Anus--uh, I mean, Connor, was it?--how did he, ah, explode?" Rusty inquired delicately, wrinkling her nose as she silently wondered if such a thing could even happen. Melody answered with a morose sigh, and Max once again took it upon herself to explain as she stated bluntly, "He was at the hospital, and the doctors had just finished washing off his burns with one weird medicinal water or another. Anyway, this nurse suddenly thought that he'd farted, so she lit a match...and that's when we found out the hard way that whatever it was they'd just used on Connor to sponge off his burns turned out to be highly flammable."  
"It was just this great explosion, like _Ka-boom,"_ Melody sobbed tearfully. "I was at the room right next door, getting my stomach pumped from when Kurttie--um, I mean, Mr. Angle--had forced all those gallons of milk down my throat to try and cure my hysteria, when it suddenly happened."  
"Yep, and after that, Connor was pretty much just gone," Max cut in bluntly. Melody's eyebrows met across her forehead in a thoughtful frown, as she remembered something and corrected her bandmate, "No, actually, there _was_ something left. It was like this little green globule..."  
"On the plus side, at least the explosion canceled out my amnesia," Max remarked shortly. "On the downside, that Irish bastard still owes me four thousand bucks!"  
"Well, you can always sell his car," Rusty pointed out reasonably, but one look at the sour expression on Max's face told her that selling Connor's car for repayment wouldn't even be worth the advertisement money.  
"The guy drove a beat up, rust-orange, '78 model Pinto," Max revealed dryly. "I'd be lucky if I could get four thousand in _pesos_ for that heap of classic American junk!"

Raven tore herself away from Jeff long enough to butt in at this comment, flying up to Max and Melody and demanding incredulously, _"What!_ McAnus drove a Pinto! What the hell kind of loser would drive a _Pinto?_ Has he no shame?" Melody looked somewhat upset at this description, as she tried to gently correct the blue-eyed Rager, "Well, McAnus--um, I mean, Connor--wasn't really a loser, it's just that he didn't care much about appearances, you see. He wasn't out to impress any girls or anything, like most men with fancy cars are, because--"  
"Because he was a gynophobic old virgin," Max cut in bluntly, "which is why he didn't go out and sell his soul to the local Bank of America so that he could buy himself a fancy Porsche."  
"Well," Rusty stammered, silently grateful that Scarlet Rage was now no longer the only super-dysfunctional band on this tour. "Listen, I should probably be going now, so Max, Melly, good luck on finding a replacement for McAnus--um, I mean, McAnal--um, I mean, McWhateverHisNameIs. In the meantime, it'll probably be a good idea for me to try and stop Camryn and Shannon from throttling our lead singer!"

* * *

Kyrie frowned as she touched up on her makeup, clearly irritable at having been torn from her precious Shannon's side to promote the Vinyl Act tour when she could have spent the day counting all the pretty zebra stripes in his blonde ponytail.  
"Honestly, Cait," she started to complain, critically observing her reflection in the mirror as she pushed back her rainbow-streaked brown hair, "you could have made up an excuse like Urban Trash did and gotten us out of this publicity stunt--whatever it might be."  
"So you can go back and ogle Shan-Shan?" Caitlin teased, grinning as she brushed her own flaxen locks in front of a mirror. "Come on, Kyrie, lighten up. You can go for one day without gazing adoringly at Shanny M, can't you?" Kyrie gave a grudging nod, before turning to Caitlin and quipping with a knowing smirk, "Just like how _you_ can go for one day without gazing adoringly at Robby V--and his butt--right?" Caitlin turned bright pink, fumbling around the dresser top for a tube of lipstick as she stammered, "What are you talking about, Kyrie, I don't stare at his butt...not _that_ much, anyway."  
"Hey, no need to be so embarrassed--if I didn't have Shannon, I'd be staring at Rob's butt too. The guy _is_ friggin' hot, after all," Kyrie giggled, then added with a frown as Amanda and Kelly's loudly flirting voices floated down the hall toward them, "Besides, at least _you_ have good taste when it comes to guys. I don't get _what_ Manda and Kel see in brainless studs like those French guys and Randy Orton. Ugh."  
"Well, they _are_ pretty cute," Caitlin reminded her, then added with a faint blush, "But not as cute as Rob, of course." Kyrie wrinkled her nose in distaste, conceding grudgingly, "All right, so they're good-looking, I can give them that. But they're so unbelievably stuck-up and in love with themselves, it's sickening--"  
"Sh!" Caitlin quickly shushed, when Amanda and Kelly's voices drifted closer to the dressing room. "They're coming."

True to the only blonde member of Verbena's word, Amanda and Kelly _did_ skip into the dressing room as soon as Kyrie had shut up, Amanda flirting at the top of her lungs, Kelly scoring a piggyback ride from some cute cameraman. Caitlin cleared her throat pointedly as soon as the two Verbena girls and their adoring male entourage had entered the room, whistling with studied nonchalance as she smoothed back her hair, "Aren't you going to introduce us to your friends over there?" while the expression in her impatient grass-green eyes clearly snapped, _Where the hell have you two been!_ Kelly stopped just then, languidly fiddling around with the charms on her silver bracelet as she sang out, "Oh, hi there, Caitie. What'sHerFace and I were just hanging out with some new friends. Here, let me introduce you." She then hopped off the cameraman who'd been carrying her around and beamed up at him, clearing her throat before speaking.  
"Kyrie, Caitlin, this is my special new friend...um, Jerry? Jimmy? Johnny?...this is my special new friend, um, Joey," she improvised, having the grace to blush and look sheepish at her obvious blunder. Her special new cameraman friend arched an eyebrow in her direction, before dryly correcting her, "That's Josh, actually."  
"Heh, oops," Kelly tee heed apologetically, giving Amanda the perfect opportunity to gloat and look important, as she harrumphed, "Yes, well, unlike Kali over there, _I_ actually have the decency to remember _my_ new friends' names."

As Kelly scowled and stuck out her tongue at Amanda, the New Yorker turned to one of her male fans and fired off, "Caitie, Kyrie, meet my very own Southern stud, Beau. He's a Creole from New Orleans, you know. Isn't he to die for?" Beau turned to fix a wary look on the punk-wannabe pop tart, clearing his throat as he drawled without a hint of a Creole accent, "That's very kind of you, Miss Amanda, but I'm actually from Virginia, and my name is Jesse."  
"Oh, Jesse's adorable, what's your full name?" Caitlin chipped in her two cents, causing Jesse to flash her a million-watt smile before adding casually, "Thanks, I appreciate it. My full name's actually Jesse James Bond, Miss."

"Ahem!" Kelly pointedly re-inserted herself into the conversation just then, attaching herself to another cute cameraman as Amanda shot her a withering look, "While Amara's recovering from her silly goof-up, let me just introduce you guys to Aaron Wilkens."  
"Actually, _I'm_ Aaron Wilkens," a handsome blonde-haired, blue-eyed youth standing several feet away spoke up, causing Kelly to frown and turn to the guy she was currently holding hands with, fixing him with a suspicious emerald stare while asking almost accusingly, "You mean you're not Aaron? Then who the hell are you?"  
"Lance," he replied, much to Kelly's consternation, as she cried out, "But I thought the redheaded guy was Lance!"  
"He's Rowen," Lance reminded her.  
"And the one who looks like Heath Ledger?" Kelly demanded indignantly, putting her hands to her hips as she looked up at him. "Isn't _he_ Rowen?"  
"No, he's Cade," somebody called out. Amanda huffed indignantly at that revelation.  
"No way!" she spoke up vehemently, pushing her way toward Lance and Kelly. "Cade is the cute dark-haired guy, the Heath Ledger look-alike's Tony! Or was that Erik?"  
"There's way too many cute guys here to tell who's who," Kelly hissed at her, before groaning to herself, "Ugh, I _knew_ we should have just gotten name tags!"

Kyrie, who'd been watching this scene with unconcealed mirth, now chose to speak up as she called out teasingly, "Next time you two should just go and pick up guys at the supermarket, huh? At least all the professionals there actually _are_ wearing name tags for a change, so you'll be able to tell who's who!" Kelly and Amanda joined forces to give her combined glares of death, before returning to their difficult task of sorting out guys.  
"All right," Kelly spoke up, and her tone of voice clearly indicated that she thought she was some sort of general weeding through recruits. "The tanned guy with the long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail I definitely know isn't Cade or Tony, because he looks too much like Shannon Moore and--" Before she could finish her sentence, Kyrie had zipped up from her seat and trampled over Kelly, crying out frantically, "Shannon! Where? Where is he! I never got to explain to him why I nearly barged into his bathroom stall the other day!"

Caitlin rolled her eyes heavenward.  
"Honestly, Kyrie, have some self-respect," she muttered chastisingly, adding something under her breath about how certain girls dropped everything just to chase after a guy.  
"Yeah, and the cute guy with the dimples who looks just like Rob Van Dam I'm positive is called Lafe or something," Amanda happened to conveniently pipe up at that moment, causing Caitlin's eyes to snap open their widest as their owner squealed happily, "Robbykins! He's here! Already! Let me through, or I'm kicking some serious cute cameraman ass!" Now it was Amanda's turn to roll her eyes, as she scolded, "No, Caitlin, Rob isn't here..." Her voice trailed off, as she sent a suspicious look in the blonde Texan's direction while asking quizzically, "By the way, Caitlin, just what exactly did you mean by Rob being here "already?" Are you expecting him or something?" Now Kelly had joined Amanda in frowning suspiciously at the suddenly apprehensive Caitlin, while somewhere in the sea of cute guys, Kyrie was frantically digging her way through in an effort to get a glimpse of the Shannon Moore look-alike. Caitlin swallowed nervously, fiddling around with her recently manicured nails while stammering, "No, of course I wasn't expecting him or anything, it's not like I made plans, and...Hey, look, that guy who just came in here looks exactly like Randy Orton!"

Amanda and Kelly nearly fell down as they whipped around, before spotting at the same time a tall, dark-haired guy who'd just entered the room, and calling out what they thought was his name in unison.  
"Brandon!" Kelly sang out happily, waving around one arm in a wide circle and nearly decking Amanda in the process.  
"Rhys!" Amanda, after ducking wildly to escape being hit, laughed in an obnoxiously loud voice so as to be heard over Kyrie's disappointed whines that nobody in the male harem looked like her precious Shanny. The guy at the front blinked in confusion, before mumbling in a low voice, "Actually, my name's Dylan, and I just came by to tell you girls from--what was your band name again? Veranda? Verdura?"  
"Uh, no, it's Verbena--you know, as in the flowers that you grow?" Caitlin, who'd grown up in Texas and was acquainted enough with the Spanish language to know that Dylan had just unwittingly called them all vegetables, hastened to correct him.  
"Whatever. You're up in five," Dylan shrugged off his mistake, then quickly scooted out of the room before either Kelly or Amanda could latch on to him.

Caitlin stood up and beamed, chirping a little too cheerfully, "All right, girls, you heard, um, that Damien guy or whatever his name is, we're up!" Amanda and Kelly reluctantly stopped counting all the hotties they'd collected, before sifting through the crowd of guys in search of an MIA Kyrie.

"Nope, uh uh, you don't look at all like my Shanny," Kyrie was sniffing disdainfully to herself, peering closely at each and every guy in the face before letting him go and resuming her search. "Too tall to be Shannon, too redheaded, too skinny, too tanned, too blonde...Well, I guess you _sort_ of look like Shannon." She finally stopped and paused in front of a medium-height sound technician with a modestly muscular physique and a long blonde ponytail that sported a few black streaks.  
"Yup, I guess you kind of look like Shanny," Kyrie muttered critically to herself, tapping at her chin as she looked the blonde up and down. "What's your name? Is it something that sounds like Shannon, like Shane or Rennon or something?" The blonde arched an eyebrow at her, before speaking up dryly, "My name's Lila." Kyrie stopped and frowned.  
_"Lila?_ That's kind of a girly name for a guy, isn't it?" she pointed out, and Lila scowled and sniped, "For your information, you dumb brunette, I _am_ a girl!" She then turned and jabbed an accusing finger in Kelly and Amanda's general direction, hissing angrily, "And the only reason I even came here was because those two pimpettes tried to steal my boyfriend, Michael!" Amanda eeped under the frightening glare and quickly ducked behind Caitlin's shorter form, while Kelly boredly peered at her rose-painted nails and drawled in a languid Southern-accented voice, "So what? You say that like it's a bad thing!"

Caitlin, after assuring Amanda that Lila wouldn't harm her, and that if she did they could always pin a lawsuit on her ass faster than one could say her boyfriend's name, tried to collect the scattered members of her band together so that they might go out for their publicity stunt.  
"Come on, girls, it's time to go on," she said enthusiastically, yanking Kyrie away from where she'd been grilling a cute blonde cameraman who sort of looked like Shannon, while at the same time stopping Kelly from trying to flirt with half a dozen guys at the same time. Kyrie, Kelly, and Amanda exchanged curious looks at this prodding from their fair-haired bandmate, before shrugging and beginning to head out of the dressing room.  
"Aren't you coming with us, Cait?" Kyrie stopped and turned around to ask the one member of Verbena who seemed to be holding back.  
"In a minute," Caitlin answered a bit too sweetly. "Let me just, um, finish putting on some eyeshadow, then I'll catch up to you guys right away, I swear." Kyrie shrugged again, none too concerned, and began heading out to the stage where Caitlin had assured them Verbena was supposed to do an interview to promote the Vinyl Act tour.

The trio of pop stars took the stage at that moment, and were instantly greeted by a wave of cheering and applause from the studio audience, much to their pleasant surprise. The host, a nice-looking young man in his late twenties with thick, jet-black hair and dimples when he smiled in greeting, spoke warmly into his microphone as the three ladies came into view, "Ah, and I see that our special guest judges have now arrived!" Kyrie, Kelly, and Amanda exchanged pleased looks, each wondering what they might be judging. Kyrie decided that it was probably a talent contest, Kelly was hoping that it would be an all-male exotic dancing extravaganza, and Amanda was thinking that it might be a beauty pageant--after all, only a gorgeous Southern belle like her would know how to spot beauty in others.

"All right, ladies and gents, now we'll be getting to know our special guest judges for this very special Jiggliest Love Handles contest!" the host announced enthusiastically, as Kelly, Kyrie, and Amanda exchanged dumbfounded looks. _Jiggliest Love Handles contest!_  
"Judge Number One--will you please stand up?" the host was winking at Kyrie, who cautiously half-rose from her seat as he proceeded to introduce her with, "Our first judge hails all the way from Yeehaw County, Arkansas! Please welcome the best corn-fed hog farmer in the entire U.S. of A., Miss Petunia Belch!" Kyrie's eyes widened into indignant green saucers, as she squeaked out disbelievingly while flapping her arms about, _"What!_ My name's_ Petunia Belch!_ I'm raising _pigs_ for a living!"  
"Uh, Security, please restrain Miss Burp--I mean, Miss Belch," the host spoke up warily, running a hand through his hair before motioning toward a suddenly frightened-looking Amanda.

"Our second judge," he began, as Amanda nervously stood up and waved at the makeshift audience, "is a _Playboy_ playmate--" Amanda let out a breath of relief. Whew. At least she hadn't gotten anything horrible, like Kyrie and her disgusting, slobbering fat pigs.  
"--who became one of Hef's bunnies after dropping three hundred pounds of flab through gastric bypass surgery. We can all view a tape of her operation during the contest intermission," the host continued cheerfully, as Amanda brought her hands up to her face in dismay and wailed, "I was_ fat! _I can't be fat! I'm the new punk version of Britney but with better hair!"  
"Please welcome Miss Beulah Bové, formerly known as Blubber Butt Bové before she got all that blubber sucked out!" the host finished, then motioned for a traumatized Amanda to sink dazedly back into her seat.

"Now, our third and last special guest judge here today," he said, moving on to Kelly, who swallowed nervously but attempted to put on a brave face as she began to stand up and greet the audience. "Our final judge is the queen--or, should I say, king?--of transvestites--"  
"NOOOOOOOO!" Kelly howled, bolting up and out of her seat before the host could finish.

Backstage, Caitlin wove her way through the midst of cute guys that Amanda and Kelly had collected, sneaking out furtively through a back exit and looking around with expectant grass-green eyes. Seeing a silver rental car parked at the curb, the blonde San Antonio native broke into a wide smile and jogged over the few yards before hopping into the passenger seat.  
"Hey, I'm so glad you managed to get here on time," she smiled at the handsome young man seated behind the driver's wheel, who grinned before shifting the gear stick to Drive and slowly peeling away from the curb.  
"So, which movie do you want to see?" Rob asked, as he pulled out of the studio parking lot and turned into a street marked Palm Avenue.  
_"Lé Divorce,"_ Trish and Jackie Gayda called out laughingly from the backseat, while squished in between the two of them but looking like he wasn't minding being a divas' sandwich too much, Test chimed in with mock macho bravado, "No way are you two dragging me to a chick flick! I say we go see _Bad Boys II."_  
"Ew!" Trish and Jackie shrieked loudly at the same time, nearly blowing out Test's eardrums in the process before Trish proceeded to add with tongue-in-cheek impishness, "I heard that movie stunk even worse than You Of The Anti-Anti-Perspirant One, Testicle Boy!"

Rob tuned out the squabbling in the back as Test began to splutter wordlessly in mock anger, taking his eyes briefly off the road to shoot an inquiring look at Caitlin as he asked, "So, what do you think, Cait?" The tanned Texan shrugged, replying pleasantly, "Anything, really. I could care less what movie we saw...By the way, Rob, Edge _is_ taping this live jiggling contest for us, right?" Rob nodded, causing Caitlin's smile to grow even wider as she gleefully rubbed her hands together and laughed, "Great! I can't wait to see how the girls are reacting to this "publicity stunt!" That's what they get for all ditching me at the first show on the Vinyl Act tour!"

* * *

A crowd of retirement home residents, many of them in wheelchairs, some of them plugged up to life-support, loitered around aimlessly in the nursing center's garden that had been hastily cleared out and transformed into an outdoors concert venue--as was made evident by the scattering of lawn chairs and a crumbling old stage plopped down in the center--waiting for the "blues" band that some buffed up old guy had promised would come and perform for the crowd.

Meanwhile, five miles way, a somewhat bedraggled-looking crew of Ragers were trying to stumble and stagger toward the location of their unfortunate publicity stunt, moving at about a snail's pace after having been kicked out of the limo Vince had rented for them. Right now, Deron was busy fighting with Rusty for the only Walkman the five rock stars had in between them, whining obnoxiously about how Frank Sinatra's "Fly Me To The Moon" was the perfect song to get the two of them in the mood--  
"Ow! Rusty, quit slapping me already, I meant getting us in the mood for some fooling around--Ow! I was talking about fooling around as in playing a half-assed show for those incredibly old and wrinkled people!" Deron puffed insultedly, yelping to duck another punch before a light of understanding finally dawned upon Rusty's chocolate-colored eyes and she paused in mid-swing.

"Show some respect, Cutler, you could at least refer to them as senior citizens," she corrected him dryly, her attention soon diverted from Deron's exaggeratedly injured looks when Raven piped up from a few feet behind, "Say, Rusty, do you happen to know who's hosting this old farts' concert?" Rusty shrugged, screwing up her face in a thoughtful frown as she tried to remember, "I'm not sure...I think Vince McMahon was too scared to pronounce his name clearly in front of Shannon and Camryn..."  
"Didn't his son mention that it would be Gilbert Godfrey?" Deron chimed in airily, as looks of sheer horror popped up simultaneously on Rusty and Raven's faces, before the former sputtered weakly, "But...but...but Gilbert Godfrey isn't _that_ old...is he?" Deron shrugged.  
"Nah, they just needed somebody with a really, really loud, shrill, and obnoxious voice to make sure none of the old geezers drift into any comas during our show," he spoke up cheerfully, causing Raven to wail, "Noooooo! First no Jeffykins for a whole twenty-four hours, and now we've got Iago the Parrot as our host!"

Stumbling around behind the trio, Shannon and Camryn stopped fighting over the last drop of Jack Daniel's when they heard Raven's terrified howl, snapping straight up as they realized that Iago would be their host for the evening. Shannon exploded at their bad luck with a string of curses that would make even a Long Island trucker blush, while Camryn's eyes narrowed into hard emerald slits before she turned to exchange meaningful looks with her fellow Troublesome Triplet (the third being Rusty whenever she was PMS'ing). Without a word, the two sped up their pace and sprinted ahead of their bandmates, causing Rusty to frown worriedly at the prospect of what her fellow Triplets might be up to, Deron to snatch the opportunity and start cranking up Sinatra, and Raven to turn and yank on his longish blonde hair for effortlessly ruining Scarlet Rage's badass hard rock image as soon as that first, "Fly me to the moon" line was crooned out.

By the time Rusty, Raven, and Deron had managed to trip and totter their way to the aptly-titled Adopt A Civil War Relic Concert venue, Shannon and Camryn had already long since arrived, and were standing in front of a closed elevator looking innocent as only they could. Which basically translated into the duo standing around puffing furiously on cigarettes, ignoring the suspicious pounding noises coming from the elevator behind them and occasionally fighting over the bottle of over-priced cognac they'd swindled straight out of the hands of some poor guy too old to even realize he'd been inveigled out of his booze.  
"About damn time you three made it," Shannon growled in a harsh, smoky voice, as Camryn beside her grunted something in agreement before tossing her still burning cigarette away and onto the hair of some hapless over-moussed nurse who had the bad luck of being shorter than the Scarlet Rage guitarist.

"Come on, let's get this damn thing over with," the green-eyed vixen snapped, clearing her throat and slinging her guitar over her shoulder. Raven and Deron shrugged and obligingly followed suit, but Rusty stopped in mid-pace as the loud, obnoxious pounding persisted from inside the elevator Shannon and Camryn had been previously reclining against.  
"Hey, you two," she called out, even as in the corner of her eyes she caught sight of a sudden movement rounding around the corner, "do you hear that thumping noise?"  
"No," Camryn lied blatantly, looking rather bored, when Shannon abruptly seemed to notice the same movement Rusty had perceived earlier, and hastily dealt an urgent backhanded slap onto her taller bandmate's arm. Camryn turned around, her green eyes widening at the sight of a horde of enraged security guards careening toward them, before quickly cursing, "Oh, shit!" and taking off in a flash. Shannon wasted no time in following in her example and scramming as well, and right before a bewildered Rusty's eyes, the two Troublesome Triplets had disappeared around a corner with a swarm of security guards in hot pursuit.

"I don't think I even want to know what you did this time," the second guitarist of Scarlet Rage muttered with a wry look on her face at this turn of events, at the same time that Raven, who'd wandered curiously over to the elevator from which the loud pounding noises had been emanating, called out as she pressed the Open switch, "Hey, would you look at that, Rust! Somebody's tied up and gagged Gilbert Godfrey and tossed him into this elevator right here!" Deron perked up at this announcement.  
"Dude! That's so cool," he grinned, flashing a thumbs up sign to the red-faced and severely pissed off-looking Gilbert Godfrey, while Rusty groaned and smacked her forehead with the heel of one hand, grumbling, "So what else is new?"

By the time all five members had managed to make their way to the stage, Shannon and Camryn had already succeeded in landing themselves a November 18th trial date for assault and battery...but as the saying goes, the show must go on, which was how Deron found himself in front of his microphone stand, grinning idiotically at the crowd of bewildered, half-deaf senior citizens in front of him and cheering, "Are you all ready to rock the roof off?...Well, if this garden _had_ a roof, of course!"  
_"What did he say?"_ a man well in his eighties turned to warble into his nurse's ear, while some chubby little old lady with an array of knitting needles and blue yarn on her lap stopped in the middle of weaving a hideously bulky sweater to snap sourly, "Pipe down there, young man!"  
"Jeez, what's your problem there, grandma? Is it that time of the month or what?" Deron pouted innocently, causing Raven to explode into giggles and Rusty to nearly fall down in frustration. Thankfully, the irascible old lady failed to hear his remark, and after he'd managed to get the crowd about as riled up as retirees aged seventy through one hundred could possibly be, Deron strutted up to the microphone stand and began to belt out the lyrics of the first song.

**_Song lyrics to "Wild Side" removed, in accordance with FFN's newest brilliant idea_**

"Amen!" Rusty sang obediently as soon as Deron was done; however, Raven completely missed her cue and opted instead to shriek, "Ew, that perverted old guy just tried to moon me! Oh, no, now he's broken his hip bending over! Aw, poor guy..." One of the retirement home managers quickly rushed up to the stage before Deron could resume singing, covering up the head of his microphone and hissing, "Uh, Mr. Cutlass?"  
"That's Cutler," Deron corrected him cheerfully, but the guy waved off his mistake as he rushed on, "Whatever. Listen, sir, many of our residents don't have much longer to live--if you know what I mean--and the last thing they want right now is to be called sinners in the few weeks or months they have left with us!" Deron blinked innocently.  
"Oh, whoops," he mumbled a half-hearted apology, before turning around to signal the rest of his bandmates to cut the song in mid-verse.

"What seems to be the problem?" Rusty wanted to know, frowning worriedly while running a hand through her hair.  
"The guy in charge's real anal about us playing something to do with sinners," Deron shrugged in response, then turned to his microphone and cheerfully sang out, "All right, you wonderful old people out there! Since Mr. Preppy by the side of the stage has just nagged me about all you guys dropping like flies within a couple of months, Scarlet Rage has decided to change its setlist from the darker material about sinners and crime toward more lighthearted satire-types of songs!"  
_"What did he say?"_ the same eighty-year-old man hollered into his nurse's ear, even as several gasps of indignation and shock ran across the audience as the seniors who were still able to hear united to shoot dirty looks in the general direction of the manager, who gulped and nervously tugged at this collar.

After gathering together to converse none too quietly amongst themselves, during which Rusty was promptly shoved out of the huddle for raising too many common sense questions, the remaining four-fifths of Scarlet Rage soon decided on a new song and scattered across the stage to resume playing, looking rather pleased with themselves as Deron proceeded to screech out the lyrics.

**_Song lyrics to "Big Balls" removed, in accordance with FFN's newest brilliant idea_**

While Deron concentrated on singing and vigorously humping the microphone stand at the same time, several of the seniors turned around and hollered at their nurses about what sort of newfangled devices these balls were. The unfortunate few that _did_ get the thinly-veiled meaning of the song promptly fluttered and dropped onto the lawn like flies, while the lady with the knitting needles remarked solemnly about how she could use some balls (of blue yarn!) right about now.  
"Mr. Q-Tip!" the retirement home manager wailed, nearly tearing his hair out as seniors continued to either swoon or bawl out demands about what these balls were supposed to imply. "Stop! Stop! This is entirely inappropriate!"

In a huff, Scarlet Rage stopped playing to allow the frazzled manager to intervene. Raven pouted and griped about how her Jeffykins always approved of whatever music she chose to play, unlike this "bad-toupee-wearing geezer with the jumbo stick up his ass," Rusty wore a knowing, _See-I-told-you-so_ smirk on her face, and Camryn and Shannon looked like they were barely restraining themselves from doing the same thing to the hapless manager that they'd done only half an hour earlier to Gilbert Godfrey and earned themselves a court trial as a result.  
"Dude, if our party material isn't good enough for you, and our darker material isn't good enough for you either, then what the hell do you want from us?" Even the ever-mellow Deron was beginning to look frustrated, as he whined sullenly with a pout on his face. Several dark blue veins popped out on the manager's forehead, before he growled out in as civil a voice as possible, "Mr. Cutthroat, please! These are respectable, seventy-eighty-and-ninety-year-old citizens listening to your music here. Could you please just play something...Well, if not romantic or demure, then at least not obscene, either!" Deron perked up at something the manager had said, a grin of unholy glee replacing his sulky pout as he bubbled happily, "Well, why didn't you say so? If you wanted something to get these old farts in the mood, you should've just told us so in the beginning!" The manager began to look apprehensive, as Deron turned around and signaled for his fellow Ragers to strike up "that special song." As Raven obediently started strumming out a series of opening bass notes, the manager whimpered to himself, "Get my residents in the _mood?"_

**_Song lyrics to "Big Bottom" removed, in accordance with FFN's newest brilliant idea_**

Deron sang out cheerfully, nearly giving the manager a seizure right there on the stage. Before said manager could intervene, however, Rusty, too engrossed in playing to even notice what was happening, accidentally bumped into him and knocked him facefirst onto the floor, allowing Camryn then to step carelessly over a certain part of the luckless man and nearly give him a free circumcision as a result. With the manager and his meddling ways temporarily taken care of, Deron was free to yodel and hump away, as he cheerfully delved into the chorus of his special new song.

**_Additional lyrics to "Big Bottom" removed, in accordance with FFN's newest brilliant idea_**

Fortunately for the flabbergasted retirement home manager and his bewildered and offended residents, Deron abruptly stopped singing after that last line to let out a high-pitched yodel.  
"Owie owie owie!" the tanned lead singer shrieked, unexpectedly shoving his microphone stand as far away from him as possible and ending up sending it hurtling into the crowds and knocking out a cluster of seniors equipped with wheelchairs and oxygen tanks. Deron failed to notice his mistake, as he instead opted to hop around gingerly all over the stage, grimacing and sniffling about his boo-boo, until Raven sniped crossly, "What the hell are you bitching about over there, blondie?"  
"I think I pulled a muscle from humping the mic stand too hard," Deron half-whimpered, half-squeaked in a pathetic voice, causing Raven to roll her eyes heavenward and grumble something about how thank God Jeffykins was smart enough to know that humping the air was much safer than humping a mic stand. Meanwhile, back in the audience...  
_"What did he say?"_ the deaf eighty-year-old rasped into his nurse's ear.

* * *

Melody smiled gently as Kurt continued to hover over her like a fussing baby-sitter, trying to think of the most tactful way to tell him that band outsiders generally tended to stay on the outside whenever Urban Trash was conducting important business like auditioning a new bass player.  
"Kurt, please," the pretty Australian spoke up in as nice a voice as possible. "I'm sure your band needs you way more than I do. Why don't you go help them out or something?"  
"But Melly," Kurt pouted, "after what happened with your old bassist, I have to stay here and make sure you don't wind up hiring another guy who'll swindle you out of four thousand dollars again!" Melody shrugged wordlessly, unsure of exactly what to say to this, when fortunately the first of the potential bassists arrived for her audition and unwittingly gave the coffee-haired Aussie an excuse to wriggle out of a comeback.

She was a tall redhead in her mid-twenties, with a modestly muscular physique and a brisk, Indian gait as she crossed the room toward where Max and Melody were seated. Melody quickly signaled Kurt to be quiet as she turned toward the redhead and offered her warmest smile, speaking pleasantly, "Hi, you must be here to audition for Urban Trash." The redhead merely offered a terse nod, before sensing that perhaps a perfunctory introduction might be necessary at this moment and grunting curtly, "That's right. My name's Sarah Jean Slade. Pleasure." Her cold blue-gray eyes, however, conveyed no sense of pleasure at this meeting, as she added almost as an afterthought, "You can call me Renegade, though--or Gade, take your pick." With that she walked over to a corner and began tuning her bass, making it clear that those were pretty much the only words Melody was going to wrench out of her for the rest of the afternoon.

"Well, _that_ was a delightful experience," Max drawled sarcastically, looking rather bored as she doodled little purple V1's on a notebook and seemingly unaware that she was actually drawing one Matt Hardy's logo. Her brown eyes narrowed a bit, as she added frostily, "I guess she's one of those so-called non-conformists who think they're too good for talking since it's so entrenched in pop culture." Melody frowned at the biting tone in her bandmate's voice, reproving mildly, "That's not fair, Max. Renegade's probably just shy."  
"Yeah, she's definitely got to be shy if she runs around calling herself _Renegade,"_ Max snorted scornfully, scribbling something in her notebook and not-so-accidentally jabbing a hole right through the lined paper.  
"Max, please..." Melody's voice trailed off in mid-reproach, when the sound of light footsteps skittering across the floor announced the arrival of two new bassists.

"Hi, hope we're on time for a change," a high-spirited female voice called out laughingly from across the room, drawing Melody's attention to the figures of two girls in their early twenties, both with jet-black hair and lively, easygoing grins. The girl who'd spoken, a pretty twenty-one-year-old with a Van Dutch hat pulled over her purple-streaked hair, added cheerfully, "We bumped into each other at the bus station and found out we're actually auditioning for the same band--" At that moment, the older of the two piped in, "Yeah, so we just started talking and kind of lost track of time. By the way, I'm Christina Madden." Here, she quickly extended her hand for Melody to shake, who dutifully complied as Christina's friend added, "And my name's Brody Jordan. Nice to meet all of you."

Christina had by then moved on to Max, who pointedly ignored her outstretched hand and instead demanded, "What did you say your name was again? Christina Madman?"  
"Madden," Christina corrected her, silently reminding herself that getting into a tiff with one of her potential future bandmates wasn't exactly the best way to get the job. "You know, as in the Madden twins of Good Charlotte? Benji and Joel are actually my brothers, if you can believe that." Max's lips twisted up in a smirk, as she enunciated with languid sarcasm, "Oh, _really?_ Well, aren't those news just absolute thrills and chills; what are you going to tell me next, that Avril Lavigne's your floozy godmother and you're stalking the guy from Sum 41?" Christina's bright smile faded a notch, as the normally sweet-tempered twenty-four-year-old gritted her teeth and snapped, "Are you insinuating something about my brothers?" Max scowled.  
"Honey, I'm not insinuating anything," she began cruelly. "I'm flat out telling you that you and your whole amusingly ball-less punk pop clique can--"  
"Max, please!" an embarrassed Melody, who'd been watching the mounting tensions with dread, hissed before a fight could break out. "That's no way to talk to the poor girl."

"Should I come back another time? Your band members seem to be rather agitated today," a new voice spoke up from seemingly out of nowhere, causing all the girls to turn around and look at the latest arrival who'd come to try out for bass.  
"Oh, so now you're implying that I'm hostile too, aren't you, newbie?" Max shot back nastily. Alexis Black calmly returned her glare with a smooth, blank look, flipping out her short, dark brown hair as she replied in an impassive voice, "I'm not implying or judging anybody. I just wanted to know whether this was a bad time, so I could go back to my hotel and return at a more convenient date."  
"No, it's quite all right," Melody spoke up quickly, trying to ignore the angry looks Max and Christina were exchanging. As Brody tried to help her out by putting a restraining hand on Christina's left shoulder, the Urban Trash frontwoman added, "Believe me, we're definitely ready to decide on a new bassist right now. There should be another person auditioning though, I believe..."

Here, her voice trailed off, to allow for a lazy male tone to blab, "Hey, sorry I'm late. I, erm, _accidentally_ gave my taxi driver the directions to this video game convention instead, and then when I finally found a new taxi after waiting three hours at the convention for one, I nearly got run over by a Haagen Das ice cream truck on the way over!" Melody exchanged incredulous looks with Max, who simply rolled her eyes as though to snicker, _Yeah, that guy's definitely a keeper!_  
"Erm, you must be Adam Woo," Melody spoke up politely, choosing to keep her thoughts and impressions unspoken, and was answered with a dazed look and a slow nod.  
"Yeah, must be," the pale, somewhat skinny young man mumbled stupidly, narrowing his eyes at her in a wide-eyed stare before he added, "Hey, did you know you look just like that chick from _Final Fantasy?"_ Melody smiled back, although somewhat uneasily.  
"Heh, how nice," she stammered awkwardly, not knowing what else to say. Shifting her glance over to the five bassists gathered in front of her, she proceeded to add, "Well, I guess that's it, then. Within the next few hours, we're going to find out which one of you is going to be the new bass player for Urban Trash."


End file.
